Who Do You Think You're Fooling
by All the kings ham
Summary: Just because you can find help on the side of the road doesn't mean that Sam has to accept that help with out reservations. teen!sam casefic, samifer
1. Chapter 1

_notes: so I still write, rather aggressively- I'm just terrible at cross posting stories between websites. For whatever reason it's always seemed that Destiel is the main ship for our fandom on this site, where as Samifer is less welcomed here and better received on Ao3. Not to say that all of you who find me have been anything other than absolutely lovely *^_^* but it's obviously not as popular of a coupling._

 _so, here's the first parts of a story I started a while back. It's not my regular fluff for these two fools. It's got a bit more weight and plot to it, but it's something that I've enjoyed working on so far~_

* * *

The yellow gas station lights bounced off the water beading over the Impala's windshield, destroying Sam's view of the pumps with a thousand wet starburst. He could smell the petrol as John filled up the tank. Familiar scent that was sweet and sour all at the same time, and just one more thing that he hardly even noticed any more. Years on the road, sitting in the back seat beside his brother, there was no end to the things that you could learn to ignore.

Except Dean wasn't in the back seat with him now. No, he was slouched instead across the shotgun seat like he was melting into it, becoming one. The hundred and ten percent humidity, that only ever seemed to grow worse at night, getting to him after their third day down in the bible belt.

From his own dark corner where he'd taken up residence over this last day or so, Sam could see the back of his brother's neck was wet with sweat, same for the collar of his shirt. Soaked through despite how cool he was still trying to play it.

Louisiana was going through some kind of heat wave that was record breaking, among other things- and none of them kind to the Winchesters.

"Roll down your window." Sam kicked the back of his brother's seat.

"It's raining." He said tonelessly, not even bothering to lift his head.

Sam rolled his eyes towards the aluminum overhang that sheltered the gas pumps. "There's the… the roof thing over the pumps," he groused, kicking again. "It's stuffy as fuck in here."

"Watch your damn mouth." Dean said by route, automatically.

But Sam was bristling, just a few months over seventeen, and one of his favorite games was to push at his boundaries. Stretching to the edges of his cage and rattling the bars a bit. Looking to see if he could find new ways to make John go red in the face.

The old man must have been able to hear them through the glass, because he was suddenly knocking with a knuckle against a window and scowling darkly at his youngest.

Sam only rolled his eyes and stretched out a bit more, not liking how the small of his back stuck to the leather of his seat. The heat was clinging to him like a second skin. Like some kind of sentient creature trying to crawl inside of him- and there was no way to run from it.

Dad had left the keys in the ignition on Dean's request. Some feeble attempt at keep the vents running, even though they had nothing at all like an AC in this mobile home of theirs, and all it served to do was stir up the stagnant air while they were stalled here at the station. Refilling the gas tank and getting a late dinner of chips and Slim Jims.

It was nearly midnight, and they'd been running themselves a little ragged these past few days. Dean and John taking turns driving . All of them sleeping in the car when they could as they hauled ass across countless county lines hunting something unnamable with empty eyes and a wide, hungry mouth. It flew faster than the Impala could follow- but still they tried, relying on the trail of half eaten bodies that the police kept turning up in the strangest of places.

They were all of them exhausted. Worse for wear from the hellish few days strung out on the road with this heat.

Always with this heat.

Without the hum of the highway, and the complementary traffic that went along, the inside of the car was almost deafeningly quiet.

"Turn on the radio at least." Sam aimed one last kick at his brother's back with the old seat rocking between them from the impact.

And Dean growled, teeth showing in a tired kind of snarl. But he'd never really been able to tell Sam no to anything, so he still reached out to punch the dial, flooding the cab of the car with the little local radio station pumping out the golden oldies like it was still 1973 and all there was were new ideas and free love.

' _When I was grown to be a man-'_ the voice in the radio told his story with cheer, ' _and the devil would call my name- I'd say now who do, who do you-'_

Dean jammed a finger down on the dial, changing stations.

"Hey, I was listening to that." Sam sat up, tugging at his brother's sleeve.

"Simon and Garfunkel? Not on my watch, Sammy." He ignored the tugging with a well practiced shrug, twisting the dial until he found a heavy drum line. "I raised you better than that."

He kicked the seat again as John got back in the car.

"Hey." The old man rumbled and turned the ignition. But that seemed to be all the objection left in him. Too tired for much of anything else.

Dean's head lolled to one side. "Think maybe we stay in a motel tonight?"

"Don't have the time to waste." John pulled out of the station and the rain started to fall against the windshield again, back onto the highway, just a long, black, wet strip of tar that blended with the night.

"Sam needs a shower." Which oddly sounded less protective and more like a complaint coming from his big brother, and Sam scowled from his back corner of the car.

"We all need a shower." John sighed.

"Few hours of sleep in a real beds wont change the fact that we don't know where the damn thing is..." Dean urged, and Sam watched the way the two older men glanced at each other almost like it was a code that he would be able to crack if only given enough time.

Miles went by and Sam could only see the back of his father's head, but he could imagine the tired, pinched lines of his face. He always looked tired these days.

John didn't say anything, and neither son was dumb enough to press the matter. Suggesting something was quite different than openly challenging the old man, and they both knew better.

With a sigh just loud enough that he was sure to be heard over the hum of the road and the music that had been left running, Sam lay himself down across the back seats. Spreading out. An old sweatshirt he'd stolen from some Lost and Found box about three High Schools ago got wadded up under his head to serve as a pillow. Familiar as anything else in his life at this point.

The windows were fogged a cold slate color, murky and opaque, streaked through as rain drops were dragged sideways with the force of the wind as they tore down the highway. Leaving nowhere. Headed nowhere. The streaks from the rain made the windows look like they had bars on them.

Sam closed his eyes, shutting out the delightful imagery that his teenaged, angst riddled brain chose to provide.

He woke up as Dean tugged on one of his pant legs. Monstrously large, warm hand, pawing at his ankle. The car had stopped moving. Watery glow of cheap electrical lights steady outside the car windows.

"Come on, Sammy. Don't make me haul your sorry ass into the room. 'm too damn tired."

"We got a _room_?" But he wasn't waiting for the full answer, dragging himself out through the door that Dean had opened. Unfolding rather gracelessly from his curled, cramped position, because his legs couldn't have even been half this long last year and he was still trying desperately to get used to the length and all the things that he no longer fit in.

The motel had a large sign facing the road, promising creature comforts like AC and CABLE and SWIMMING POOL. Only half the letters had burnt out, so the message they were conveying seemed sort of cryptic and vague.

Though to be fair, all Sam wanted was a bed at this point.

Something remotely horizontal.

Preferably with some kind of padding- though it wasn't a deal breaker.

Vague was more than ok with him.

He almost missed catching the backpack that his brother tossed him as they stumbled side by side to the room that seemed to be theirs for the night.

Sam sank onto the bed nearest the door, backpack still over one shoulder. His head had missed the pillows by about half a foot and he didn't even care. "Where's Dad?"

"Securing the perimeter." Dean smacked at his feet, pushing his filthy tennis shoes off the bed. "Go shower. You smell like ass."

"And you're such a pleasure." But a shower did sound good. And being clean would make sleeping so much nicer in the long run. No dirt between him and the scratchy, over bleached sheets. Yeah, he could get back up for that.

The water was lukewarm, and the clothes that he changed into afterwards were passably clean. Not that it mattered all that much considering that the room was pretty much the same temperature as outside, and upon dressing Sam had almost immediately started sweating through his shirt.

His brother pushed past him almost the second the door opened, clumsy and considerably less graceful than two ships in the night, as they fought for room in the small doorway.

"You use up all the little shampoo on your princess hair?"

"Shut up." Getting a trim wasn't exactly at the top of his to do list. And as his big brother ran a hand through his hair, tossing his head from side to side like you'd do with a dog, Sam kind of sort of was glad he hadn't gotten around to it. But he had to keep up pretenses. Expectations and all. "Knock it off."

"Go get some sleep while you can." As tired as he must have been, Dean still grinned at him. Looking up at Sam just a bit because for nearly a year now 'older' had no longer meant 'bigger'. "I'm sure we're starting back up again first thing in the morning."

Sam leaned up against his side of the door frame, relenting the other half to his brother. Finding the proximity too warm, and too close, but it made whispering much easier.

He could see the hibernating bear shape of their father on the second bed- John already snoring loud enough to shake paint from the walls. And Sam missed the days when the boys were too young to help on hunts and he'd leave them alone for a week or two. Sam missed not having to share a narrow queen sized bed with his brother.

"So where are we?"

"Made it all the way to Mobile while you were doing your Sleeping Beauty thing in the back seat."

They'd crossed state lines. Sam found that most of the time when he fell asleep they tended to cover substantial distances.

"You think we can talk Dad into checking out the morgue in the morning for a few hours, see if that… _whateveritis_ has been through here?" Because if Sam didn't get a break from that backseat he was going to lose it.

Dean yawned, not even bothering to cover his mouth on account of what a classy gent he was. "Yeah, yeah. I'll suggest it- but I'm not making any promises." A hand came up and tousled Sam's head again.

And if Sam ducked down a bit, just enough to make it easier for Dean to manhandle him, well, there wasn't really any harm in it.

.:.

Breakfast was a mix of things from the vending machine and whatever Sam could forage from the wheel well of the Impala before John took the car and went to go check in with the morgue and the local police. He left his boys with instructions to do some restocking, with a list that read more like the inventory of a serial killer's basement than anything close to what a normal person would go to the store for.

Sam was so happy to be on foot, even though it was practically in the triple digits before ten o'clock, with a heavy bag of questionable supplies in his arms. Rope, salt, saw blades, iron nails. Hardware stores were like toy stores for hunters. You could find just about everything you needed in one place.

Just about.

"You know what I love about the south?" Dean asked with a grin, then kept on, not waiting for an answer. "You've got voodoo and hoodoo in every city. Hell, almost on every street corner. Don't got to dig like you would if we were up in like... Wisconsin or something."

Which was fair. Once up North, it had taken Sam and Dean nearly four hours to find a place that sold white candles made with animal fat instead of bee's wax. But out here they were in some cheap, rundown, wrong side of the tracks part of the city and there were dead chickens hanging in the storefront, and chalk marks and salt lines laid down along the doorway of a little shop hardly a mile from the motel they were staying in.

Sam liked the convenience.

Dean did too, right up until they walked in, and then his big brother just liked the cute girl behind the counter. White cotton dress falling off her narrow, dark shoulders. Long, black hair pulled up in a thick braid, and almost no curves to speak up, but a beautiful smile on quite kissable looking lips more than made up for all those sharp angles.

Being seventeen was hard on Sam, and something as simple as a sideways smile from a pretty girl was enough to instantly removed any thoughts of what they'd come in here to buy. Lucky for him he didn't have to put two ideas together because Dean was a pro at this. Well practiced in talking to beautiful creatures. And most likely a lot closer to her age, which didn't hurt things.

Not an ounce of hesitation as he sauntered up to the counter. Dean gave her some very sincere sounding line, and she giggled.

Sam went to go stand near the back of the store where there was an oscillating fan. He'd already seen this show. One too many times. He practically knew his brother's lines by heart. Couldn't replicate them with any kind of success at all. But he still knew them all, and didn't need a front row seat.

They left almost half an hour later, with more candles than they'd needed, chalk, willow extract, and quite a few other odds and ends that weren't on the list John had given them. Like the girl's number. What the hell was Dean even going to do with her number? He didn't own a phone, and they wouldn't be in town for more than a few more hours. Maybe it was pretenses though. Just part of the flirting process that Sam still didn't fully understand.

Dean kept glancing back over his shoulder as they walked back to the hotel. These long, lingering looks, like he hoped to catch another glimpse of that girl.

Sam sighed, just about annoyed as a teenage boy could be. "Was all that really necessary?"

"It's a quality of life thing, Sammy. You'll understand when you're an adult."

"I _am_ an adult."

"You're a fine imitation of one- but until you get your card punched, you're still just a kid."

Whatever comfortable peace they had through the shared joy being free of the car for a few hours was gone just like that.

The younger Winchester bristled, shoulders hunching forward as he walked. Where did his brother come up with these euphemisms? Sam wasn't even positive that they were talking about what he thought they were talking about. "I… I've had my card punched."

Which pulled a startled laugh from Dean, all bright and disbelieving. "By yourself doesn't count."

"You're such a jerk sometimes."

Dean grinned at him and took one of the bags, more evenly distributing the load. "You like it."

"No one likes it."

But Dean just kept on grinning.

Undaunted by the dirty looks, or the name calling, or the heat.

That was at least until John returned. Then it was all tight lipped answers. No sirs, and yes sirs- and Sam hated this version of his brother.

Much prefered the one who'd he'd spent the morning with. All warm smiles and open laughter. Like they were still kids and things weren't getting worse, and more unbearable by the day.

.:.

"What is he doing?" Dean leaned back over the front seat enough to whisper to Sam, even though he didn't take his eyes from their father as the man wrote with chalk over the hood of the Impala. A rather blasphemous act if ever there was one- but it was John's car… who was going to yell at him for it?

"How should I know?" The afternoon heat was oppressive, pooling in the stilled car as they sat on the side of the highway. Sam was being baked alive and whatever nonsense John had gotten himself up to really just didn't register all that high right now.

"You're supposed to be the smart one."

Sam actually smiled at the almost complement. "You want me to go out there and ask him?"

And Dean must have gotten the joke because he laughed as he shook his head. "Hell no." He glanced back at Sam, and then they were both laughing.

John slid into the driver's seat, frowning at his boys, but he didn't ask. Which was for the best, because they would have had a difficult time explaining that the idea of Sam going out and having a normal conversation with him was enough to send the brothers into borderline hysterics.

Funniest damn thing that Sam had heard in at least a month.

But the humor faded as the road started to blur past them, wind rushing in through the windows and whipping Sam's too long hair around his face, into his eyes. They were back on the hunt again. Back into their normal routine.

"Did we get a lead?" Dean asked as they took the junction that lead them from the 98 to the 29, straight south into De Soto National forest.

"We got the name of a hunter who might be able to help." Which was more of an answer than John usually gave.

Dean made eye contact with Sam through the sideview mirror, all kinds of doubt and confusion. But his little brother didn't have much of an explanation so he just shrugged and leaned up against the window, watching the landscape slip past faster and faster until it was just a blur of green. They rolled through De Soto and all those trees and swamps did little to ease the heat. Even without the rain this afternoon, the humidity was still smothering and Sam could feel sweat running down his temple, grazing the edge of his left eye. They passed a lake that didn't seem to have a name, just stunningly bright water that looked so inviting Sam wanted to cry, and then they were changing freeways again, going back North and it was anyone's guess where the old man was taking them.

He dozed, head sliding loose along his shoulder, knocking lightly against the window now and then and startling Sam back awake. By the time he opened his eyes the sun was dipping behind the tree line, casting long shadows that were almost comforting in the way that they practically obliterated any detail from the landscape. Far as he could tell they were still out in the park. The roads paved in only the loosest sense of the word, dusty and uneven and the Impala's shocks didn't seem to be having a fun time with it.

"Is this guy like… a park ranger or something?" He asked with a yawn, sleepily puzzling over why and how anyone could live out in the literal middle of nowhere.

Dean looked over his shoulder and shook his head slightly, an odd little frown and it was obvious that in sleeping, Sam had missed out on some kind of important conversation.

He straightened himself against the seat, tugging the lap belt into a more comfortable place around his hips. Slightly more awake, and not as hot as he'd been when the sun had been bearing directly down on top of them, Sam found that the world outside didn't really have much more detail now than when he'd gone to sleep. It was just trees. Trees and no ranger stations or cabins, or anything that would show a human living out here who might know how to help them hunt down the _whateveritis_.

That detached, isolated thought seemed to work as a summons of a kind, because no sooner had the lack of other humans crossed his mind than the car's headlights suddenly slid over a lone figure walking on the side of the road. The guy hardly even glanced over his shoulder as the Impala bounced and jostled on by him. There was a brief impression of long legs, dark jeans, something big and heavy looking slung over his back with a strap crossing over the chest of a white tshirt- then they'd passed him and the late evening shadows let him fade to less than a ghost as Sam squinted through the car's back window.

Strange place and time for a walk.

Neither John or Dean said anything, and Sam half wondered if he'd seen anyone at all.

But two miles down the road, when the trees were even thicker, little fireflies darting around like stars caught in the foliage, Sam saw the man again. Same side of the road as before, but walking backwards now so he could face the car coming towards him.

One pale arm stuck out.

One long thumb up in the air.

Asking for a ride.

And it couldn't be the same guy.

It couldn't.

There was just no way for him to have gotten ahead of the car.

...but out here, in the growing dark, what were the chances of passing two hitchhikers on the same road?

The man's face shone pale in the headlights as the Impala rolled past him. Though Sam hadn't seen the face of the first person, so he had no basis for comparison. All he had was a flash of a toothy smile and the impression of pale eyes under light colored hair, as John drove onward, not even slowing down.

Sam slunk lower into his seat, folding his arms over his chest and for the first time in months the gesture wasn't because he was feeling sullen. It was to keep himself still against the sudden creeping feeling that made his skin prickle.

Two more miles (he'd been counting the roadside markers, so Sam knew for sure that it was two miles exactly) of road under their tires, and there on the side of the road, walking backwards so he could face the oncoming car was that long legged man with one arm stretched out like he was waiting for the car to come close enough to hug.

And Dean had to see the guy too, because he was suddenly sitting forward in his seat, straining against the belt to try and get a better look at the apparition as they drove past.

Except they didn't pass him.

The car was slowing. Gravel crunching under the tiers.

"Is he serious?" Dean asked no one in particular, though his words seemed to sum up the general feeling of bewilderment that he and his brother were sharing.

Sam's hands were already fumbling under his seat for the rocksalt loaded shotgun that he kept there. The weight in his hands was oddly reassuring.

It was just a ghost.

Had to be some backwoods, hitchhiking ghost, was all Sam could think. And he hadn't wanted a closer look. Would have been fine if they'd just kept on rambling down the road, driving out to meet whatever help that John seemed to think that they could find out here. But the car came to a stop, and Sam got to watch as the man jogged towards them.

"Dean," their dad's voice was startlingly loud, "get in the backseat with your brother."

If it was a choice between his brother, and Mister hitchhiker, then yeah, Sam would gladly take the former- but what he'd really like is if they just kept driving.

They were supposed to hunt the spooky things of this world.

Not offer them rides.

The cabin light glared on as Dean popped open his door and hopped out. Dean had always been a bit too good at following orders.

"Hey, thanks for the ride, man." Which was significantly more casual than Sam had ever heard a ghost be, then again, the man who slid into the front seat was a lot more coherent and lucid than most ghosts that he'd ever seen.

Which to Sam meant, quite simply, this might not be a ghost.

Logic prevailing, Sam was open to alternative options, though his hand stayed comfortably on the butt of his gun as he slid down the seat to give room to Dean. Stoney faced brother of his that seemed just as reluctant about this whole business, settling in beside him.

"Thanks," the man said again, glancing over his shoulder to the boys in the back. "You have room back there?" But it wasn't a query as to their general health as he started to pass his bag back over the bench seat.

Sam found himself grateful to his big brother who had peace of mind enough to get his hands on the thing to help maneuver it down to the floor boards. Seeing as all that Sam could do at that particular junction in his life was to stare fixedly into the palest blue eyes he'd ever seen. The thing that the man had been carrying wasn't a duffle bag but a hard black guitar case that settled with a very weighty, very unguitar like sound against the youngest Winchester's right shoe.

"You carry that thing all the way out here?" Dean was asking with one of those good old boy smiles that he did so well, seemingly unshaken. "It's freaking heavy."

With a grin towards Dean the stranger said, "that, my friend, is because it's so full of mercy."

With a wink towards Sam the stranger turned back to face the road as the car started to move again.

And nowhere in all of his expansive vocabulary could Sam find the right collection of words to describe the very strange feelings in his stomach.


	2. Chapter 2

There were odd carvings- and as ominous as that could sound, most of them seemed fairly benign. Things etched into the guitar case with a sharp point the same way that a kid would carve graffiti into their desk at school. They were probably nothing special, but Sam ran his fingers over them like braille, puzzling over their secret code in the dark back seat of the car.

"Y'all looking for some help?" The stranger motioned loosely towards the space ahead of the car as they started back on the road.

Peering around the neck of the guitar case Sam realised that the man was actually pointing out the almost indiscernible chalk marks that had been laid out with such care over the Impala's hood.

Which did absolutely nothing to quell the uneasy feeling he had about the fact that they had actually picked up the spooky hitchhiker in the first place. The strange man wasn't supposed to acknowledge the weird circumstances. That only made it all the more weird.

"Given the situation we're in, I wouldn't mind a second opinion." And just like that, John was talking about the hunt. Starting with the first body found back in Jackson, he told the grisly trail that they had been following for what felt like forever but in all actuality was probably only a couple of weeks. The stranger listened, not much to say for himself other than a nod here, a soft grunt of agreement there, and once a sharp hiss through his teeth following the account of a particularly dead body that had been found turned mostly inside out, smelling like a dumpster fire, and left just outside the city limits of Tuscaloosa to ferment in the summer heat.

The man didn't look much like a hunter.

He was too young. Had no visible weapons. No gray in his hair or anything.

He also didn't have that cold, dead inside kind of look that John, or most of the other hunters that they came across seemed to have. They all looked hard. Tired. Worn down by a mixture of supernatural horrors and poor life choices.

Wholly by accident, Sam kept catching the stranger's gaze in the rear view mirror and had to keep forcing himself to look out his window at the featureless night. This man had a sleepless look to his eyes. Tired, yes. But not worn down.

He must have been a hunter all the same- even if he didn't fit the usual bill.

But a hunter that you summon with chalk drawings, out on deserted stretches of road?

Sam was young and knew that there were always going to be things that he just didn't understand, especially in this line of work. He could accept that. However, this was weird. Even for them.

It must have been safe though. Marginally safe in ways that were currently unclear to the youngest Winchester, because John wouldn't be talking to the stranger like he was otherwise.

"Michael Carpenter, back in Mobile, told me that you know every bad thing out here in these parts." The patriarch Winchester was saying as he pulled the Impala out of the state park and onto the highway, heading North to god knows where. "Sound like anything you've seen before?"

The stranger was quiet for a bit, taking slow breaths of muggy southern air as he thought. He scratched the shadow of stubble along the line of his jaw, and Sam couldn't help but notice that two of the man's fingernails were bruised black like they'd recently been slammed in a door.

"Back in the thirties we had a bunch of people go missin'. Dust bowl come on through, lots of people up and leaving here. Leaving everywhere. Lots of folks can go missing in a time like that and no one would even notice."

The stranger's drawl wasn't any more or less pronounced than anyone else Sam had been listening to for the last few weeks. Just a slow, soft baritone. But it did unspeakable things to the young man's insides. Funny, wicked things that made the heat in the car feel almost refreshing by comparison.

"Someone found two bodies out by the river one summer. So much of them gone you couldn't even tell if they were men or women anymore." He shook his head. "Marshalls said it was coyotes, but coyotes never made a body smell like that. Folks were smellin' it miles off. Like a whole herd of cattle up and died all together. It was awful. Just awful."

The brothers Winchester had never been allowed to leave the car to visit the crime scenes or morgues. Not that either of them were that eager to go poking around corpses anyways. They'd had to just take their father's word on the state of things- on every part of this case other than the smell. Rolling up the car windows had not been enough to save them from a very first hand experience with a stench usually reserved for bodies found left in water too long.

"We saw something a few nights back." Dean used the royal ' _we'_ as he spoke. He'd been the only one to see the something that the rest of his family simply had to take on faith. "Fresh kill that we came across and this… thing just took off into the trees. Too fast for us to catch."

The stranger had to turn around in his seat to see the young man sitting directly behind him. No seatbelt cut across his broad shoulders as he rested an arm along the bench seat, steadying himself as he cocked his head in Dean's direction. "You get a good look at it?"

Dean seemed to be sizing up this man, in the same way that he did with every other adult male that crossed his path. Trying to figure out who was taller, if he could take him in a fight, or just some other unknown alpha male bullshit that Sam hoped he never had to go through.

"If I got a good look at it we'd probably have a proper lead and wouldn't be out here looking for help." Which was an unwarrantedly salty answer from Dean. Apparently there was something in this stranger that his big brother saw and didn't like.

For years Sam had been following his brother's guidance. One step behind him the whole way. Not tonight though. Which was probably wrong, because bristling at the stranger right along with Dean was probably a more healthy impulse (given the current state of things), than the weird desire to touch this man's neck.

Who touches people's necks?

What possible purpose could that serve?

Sam kept his hands to himself and wondered if he was having some kind of heatstroke.

"Mmm, now that's probably true." The blonde in the front seat murmured softly, amused, a light smile playing on the edges of his mouth. "But here I am, nothin' to do with the rest of my night but listen to you tell me about monsters. So…"

"It moved like a shadow and it had a lot of teeth." Dean laid down the only descriptors that he had. It certainly wasn't much to go on.

The stranger nodded along as the car jostled against the bumps in the road. "Teeth?"

"Teeth."

And the two of them might have been able to keep on staring eachother down for the next few miles, but John didn't have that kind of patience.

"So you know what it is?"

The man shrugged so fluidly as he turned away from the backseat to look at John. "Since I haven't had a chance to look over any of those bodies that turned up, I wouldn't feel right saying I _know_ anything, but I have a few ideas."

John drummed his knuckles against the steering wheel. Waiting.

"Was thinking back when it happened the first time that it was probably a strix- but I only had the two bodies to look at and couldn't be sure. Could have been a nachtkrapp instead, and you don't want to get those two confused. So I waited, but the trail went cold and I found more pressing hunts to follow."

By Sam's calculations, if these were still the same two bodies found in the dust bowl, that would mean that this man sitting here in the car with them had to be at least 80 years old. Which would have been more ridiculous to anyone who hadn't seen all the things that Sam had seen so far in his short life.

Even still he found it a hard theory to swallow.

"Strix?" John rolled the word around. "Doesn't mean anything to me."

"Nothin' native to these parts." The stranger looked out his window for a while. Mobile's city lights welcoming, if not a bit blinding after the dark of the state park. "Don't suppose you'd take offence if I asked to go walk one of the dump sites with you? Maybe I can find something y'all missed."

It was not yet the middle of the night. More like 10ish, which was still rather late to be wandering around in the dark looking for spooky footprints or claw marks. Nonetheless, John nodded and took a rather deliberate path through the city to where Sam could only assume his father had spent a chunk of that morning.

Seeing as there was no way that Sam was going to sit in the stagnant air of the car, baking like a holiday ham, as soon as they pulled off the road he was out the door. Stretching his legs and turning his face towards the muggy eastern breeze that offered only the smallest relief.

As John told it, a body had turned up out here three days ago.

The smell certainly lingered.

By no means as bad as the last crime scene that Sam had been dragged to, but that one had only been a day old. Significantly fresher and shockingly pungent.

Which was not to say that this here was a walk in the park.

Actually, seeing as the sign they had passed on their way in had read Walsh Park... that particular idiom was a poor choice.

According to John, who had spoken to the county coroner that morning, the body of a kid in her mid teens had been found halfway up one of the elm trees just past the swing set.

The stranger and his father walked with the important strides of purposeful men going to look at something significant. Sam lingered near the swings and Dean slowed down to stay beside him, looking somewhat torn in his decision. After all, there were important grownup, manly thoughts and conversations and conclusions being had a few yards away.

"So," his big brother just had the one word masquerading as a question, letting it trail off as he kept his eyes on their father.

"Doesn't this seem weird to you?"

Dean laughed. A short, slightly strangled noise. "What in the last seventeen years has been anything but weird?"

Fair.

A very fair assessment of literally everything that had ever happened to Sam. He struggled to put his unease down in words. Picking this other hunter up in the middle of the woods was one thing. And then there was the way that Sam's hands had been itching something awful the whole time that they were in the car. That odd want to just reach out and touch the man in the same way that Sam had been touching the guitar case.

He rubbed his sweaty palms against his pant legs, taking a deep breath of damp air like he was drowning. The stink left over from the body caught in his nose and throat and left him gagging.

"Dude. Chill." Were the comforting words that his brother had to offer him. That and a firm pat on the back.

Sam shrugged him off, hunching his shoulders up defensively as he turned his head and spat into the grass, even if it didn't help clear the dead people taste from his mouth.

" 'm fine." He grumbled, glancing over at his dad and their new friend to see if they had noticed him choking on air. The men were standing almost shoulder to shoulder, looking out at the tree line- so it seemed that Sam would be spared at least that slight embarrassment.

"Yeah, you look fine." By the tone of his voice it was obvious that he didn't mean those words. "Picture of peak physical health."

Though it did absolutely nothing, Sam still glared. "Jerk." He said like muscle memory, to which Dean cheerfully barked back his typical reply.

If the exchange wasn't so comforting Sam would have considered it childish. As it was the words felt oddly normal and grounding. Taking the edge off the weirdness that they seemed to actually be seeking out at this point.

The toe of Sam's sneaker dug furrows in the dry summer grass, mumbling as he spoke, "it's weird having someone else with us."

"Dad's got friends. We've met them before." Dean was using the term _friends_ very loosely. The list of people that tolerated John seemed mostly based on who owed who a favor, and very little on actual friendship or any mutual enjoyment.

"Yeah, well we don't usually pick them up in the middle of the woods."

Dean just shrugged, like he really couldn't be bothered by such an insignificant anomaly.

"You think he's…" Sam didn't want to say Human. Asking if this stranger was anything other than a normal man instantly invited the universe beat them over the head with something new and strange and possibly dangerous.

"... he's…" Sam struggled to find words, desperate to end the question without sounding like a lunatic. His rattled train of thought took a strange turn and offered him ' _good looking'_ which … wow. A really odd thing to consider. And not something that he needed his brother's opinion on, much less wanted to consider on his own.

Panicked at his own confusing thoughts, Sam stammered out the words "he's um… going to help?"

And Dean was watching him with a rather unnamable expression.

It was possible that in Sam's whole life, his brother had never looked at him in the way that he was in that moment.

"I think this heat's really starting to get to you, man." He finally decided out loud, ruffling a hand through Sam's hair. "Dude's a hunter, course he's going to help… at least he looks like he's going to try."

Grumpily, Sam did what he could to smooth his damp hair out, surprised at how he was sweating at his temples and at the base of his neck. God, but it was too damn hot out here."

There weren't any crickets, or even frogs out here in the park with them. The only night sounds rolling in the humid night were distant traffic, and their father's voice carrying all too well, despite the fact that he was practically halfway across the park by now.

"- haven't been able to figure out a pattern yet. We're mostly driving in circles keeping our eyes open to see where the next body'll turn up."

The stranger must have answered, but his soft voice didn't seem to carry, and Sam could only stand there in the dark watching the outline of the men walking back - the slightly broader shouldered one which had to be his father was nodding in agreement.

"So?" Dean asked as soon as he deemed the older men to be close enough to quiz. "You find anything?" The implication in his tone saying that he didn't think that this stranger would be able to find his own ass with both hands tied behind his back.

Somewhat defiantly, the stranger held out a feather to Dean. Only calling it a feather would be as offensive as calling a snake a caterpillar. Yes there were some similarities, but that would have made a short list and the fundamental differences were fairly significant.

"The fuck is this?" Dean asked as he took hold of the feather-like thing.

Sam was close enough to look over his brother's shoulder. If it was a feather, if it came from a bird, it would have had to have been a disturbingly massive bird. The feather had to have been over three feet long and the blackest black that had ever been. It didn't seem to reflect any light at all and just sort of settled between Dean's hands like a void.

"It's a nachtkrapp feather." The stranger said as if he was an authority on the thing.

"All I hear when you say that is 'knot-crap'... just so you know." Dean said in a distracted way as he turned the massive black thing over in his hands as careful as if he were handling an antique sword.

"Nachtkrapp." The man repeated, his own accent failing as he formed the very germanic sounding word. "It means night raven."

Dean curled his lip in annoyance. "Then just call it a night raven."

"Suppose I could." The man mused with a flicker of a smile that Sam found more than slightly distracting. "But it doesn't sound nearly as impressive."

Because he needed a reason not to be looking at this man, Sam reached over to run his fingers down the side of the feather, letting it bend and flex so gently under his touch. It felt nothing like he expected. Fibrous and rigid, more like a thick cloth than something from a bird. The cut was so sharp and so smooth that Sam didn't feel it immediately. It wasn't until his fingers ran damp and he rubbed them on his pant leg did the sting strike him.

"Never heard of a night raven sighting." John was murmuring to himself. "They always sounded more fairytale than fact."

"You might be surprised at how many of those disturbing german fairy tales are based off of disturbing facts…" and then the stranger was reaching across their small quartet to take Sam's wrist, gently turning his hand palm up towards the park's security lights.

Sam's blood was dark. So mesmerizingly dark. Which seemed surprising enough to quiet his father and brother and whatever protests they both seemed to be mounting at the inappropriate touching. But the worst papercut that Sam had ever had was nowhere near as interesting to him as the feel of this stranger's fingers where they rested along the pulse in his wrist. The man's skin was as cool and dry as if he'd just stepped out of an air conditioned room. Apparently the oddness of this stranger branched further than arrival via hitchhiking, and stories from the 1930s. He also didn't seem to notice that it was over a hundred degrees out right now.

"You're going to need to clean that off." His voice soft and private like it was meant only for the two of them. "I've never heard of them carrying anything too nasty, but better to be safe."

Goosebumps marched up Sam's arm and rioted somewhere down at the base of his spine. There was a significant amount of uncalled for eye contact for a heartbeat and he had to swallow thickly before he could manage to say, "we've got a first aid kit back in the car."

"You might want to pay it a visit." That hint of a smile tugged at the man's mouth once again. It made his pale eyes crinkle on the edges, and forced Sam to acknowledge that (despite any questionable stories to the contrary) he looked to be only a handful of years older than Dean.

Part of Sam felt a thrill, because it meant that the stranger probably wasn't too old. But every other part of Sam wanted to shrink away instead of trying to figure out exactly what the man wasn't too old for.

Maybe Dean was right.

The heat really was starting to get to him.

Reluctantly he took his arm back, nodding slowly as he started towards the car.

He barely had time to rummage in the trunk before he heard the unmistakable footfall of his brother coming up behind him. "I'm fine." He said through his teeth, not particularly in the mood to be coddled by an undoubtedly well meaning Dean.

"What the actual fuck, Sammy?" Worry and anger clipping the edges of his words. Dean was the only person who could mix those two emotions so well.

"It's just a cut." A really bad cut that wouldn't stop softly dripping- but a cut was a cut, and there was no reason to get to so riled up.

A heavy, very warm hand gripped his shoulder, forcing Sam to turn and face his brother. "Not the cut, you little…" Dean seemed to catch himself, leaving his younger brother room to only guess at what name was deemed too bad to call him. "Sam, you know there's nothing you can do that… _fuck_." Dean hung his head and let his hand drop. "I don't want to do this 'tonight on a very special episode of _Who's the Boss'_ bull shit. Ok?"

Bewildered, Sam could do nothing other than stand there beside the car, watching his brother having some sort of breakdown. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Like hell. I saw you making bedroom eyes at the guy." Sometimes Dean seemed to unexpectedly suffer from these unexpected breaks from reality. "Dude, it's the 90s. I'm cool with whatever alternative lifestyle you're rocking but it's still pretty fucking weird seeing my baby brother-"

"What?" Sam choked on rather involuntary laughter. "I wasn't _making eyes_ at anyone."

"You were looking at him like an AA member looks at good scotch." Dean crowded him, doing that thing where he stood just too close, and it was less comforting than usual. "Like I said, it's fucking whatever. You're my brother. But you can't spring shit like this on me. I need time to work out on my poker face."

Sam ground his teeth. He wasn't into men. Just wasn't. Frankly, he wasn't into anyone or thing other than studying so that he could get the hell out of here and into a decent college. Dean's accusations were unhinged at best.

Their father's voice was too loud in the empty night. "- what kind of bait you put in a trap like that?"

Sam looked out into the park to see the other two men making their way over. John was solid and as dark as a storm cloud as he walked along side the pale stranger in his clean white shirt.

"I'd say we put out it's favorite food-" the man was joking softly, "but I don't know of any stores open this late that sell naughty children out past their bedtime."

Sweat was still running off of Sam, almost as steadily as the blood from his fingers. And muddled under that overwhelming awareness of HEAT was an idle curiosity if this stranger's hands would still feel as startlingly cool if they were stroking his sides, or holding his hips.

Oh.

 _Wow_.

Oh no.

Suddenly Sam's jumpy feelings back in the car made a bit more sense to himself.

Sense in ways that he really didn't want it to.

With something that felt all too close to panic, Sam turned back to Dean. "Did Dad see?"

"Nah, man." Dean rolled his eyes. "Dad was too worried about you bleeding freaking everywhere to notice the raging homo." He grabbed the mostly forgotten first aid kit and popped it open. A bottle of rubbing alcohol and a smaller bottle of iodine were set on to the Impala's bumper and Sam knew that he was in for a world of hurt.

But hey, at least it would help take his mind off of… of everything else.


	3. Chapter 3

Without a doubt, John Winchester would never win any kind of parenting awards- and the fact that he was so wholly against this plan spoke volumes for what a bad idea it really was.

"I said no. End of discussion." Dad had always had a deeply resonant voice, but there was a special low register he used when he was getting mad- a tone that Sam heard more and more often as he'd gotten older.

"Come on," Sam was doing all he could to use his newfound height to lend himself some authority here, which wasn't working at all. "I'm the youngest. I'm most likely to be appetizing to a monster that eats kids."

"Enough, Sam-"

"We're not going to go grab a random kid off the street, Dad."

"No one's using live bait to catch this thing."

It felt like his blood was boiling and he was ready to start shouting with his next breath- because even if he was the youngest he wasn't a _kid_ any longer. John couldn't keep treating him like this for forever- but Dean…

Dean was grabbing his left shoulder like a steel clamp. "Sammy, go outside." He hissed, the same sort of anger simmering in all three of them, though somehow Dean was the only one of them that had managed to keep any semblance of chill.

"No," Sam tried to shake his brother off. "This is the only idea that any of us have come up with and you two are just too damn stubborn to-"

" _Please_ ," but Dean wasn't asking with that word, he was begging. Begging to stop this argument before it took its typical turn towards violence. "Go take a walk. Cool off." He directed his brother, because getting Sam and John apart right now was the only thing that was going to keep fists from being thrown. They needed to be separated and Dean wasn't dumb enough to try and give an order to their father.

Taking the over protective advice for what it was, Sam stomped his way out of the motel room and slammed the door on his way out. It was childish, but he was only seventeen, and that allowed for some childish actions from time to time. Being slapped in the face with the heavy humid air did nothing at all to ease his anger, and his walk took him towards the Impala where he kicked he proceeded to kick the ever living hell out of the back left tire.

More childishness, but it eased some of that temper of his in a way that wouldn't leave any lasting property damage.

"Some fight you boys are havin' in there," a damnably calm voice said from off behind him. "But I don't see why the car had to get caught up in all of this." It was their hitchhiker. Calm as could be, just leaning against one of the motel's exterior walls with the bright flame point of a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, a wreath of smoke curling around his head like a halo.

A tickle of some nameless feeling dampened that self righteous anger of Sam's and his breath stuck in his throat while he looked at this ghost of a man that was haunting them. There was no logic in his feelings, as far as he was concerned. There was nothing special about this guy other than that his creep factor was off the charts. But standing out here, in his clean white shirt and his comfortably fitting jeans, his pale sleepy eyes- it dawned on Sam. There was something oddly Marlon Brando-y about their hitchhiker.

The brunt of Sam's childhood had been spent in motel rooms with a big brother who had a thing for old movies. 'A Streetcar Named Desire' was one of Dean's favorites. A movie about very good looking, very bad man. Which was apparently a dangerous combination for Sam when he was faced with such a creature in real life as opposed to safely on the far side of a screen.

If any of those messy feelings showed though, the man didn't think twice about it, carrying on so slow and comfortable as if he and Sam were old friends. "You boys decide what our next step is going to be?"

"He's still treating me like a kid," Sam tried to stay focused, kicking the tire again, his sneaker bouncing off harmlessly. "I'm not though. I've been on hunts. I can handle myself."

"No one out here's arguing with you."

"I'd make great bait." He insisted.

Their uneasy companion took the cigarette from his mouth with a thumb and forefinger, somehow managing to make the odd movement look anything but clumsy. "if that's your big plan, I'd have to say I agree with your family in there."

"You would."

"Boy, don't go making assumptions about people you don't know." His tongue flicked out, a flash of pink against his upper lip for just a moment. "Not sayin' you're wrong. Hardly a monster out there that wouldn't love to just gobble you up. 'm sayin' that what you're thinkin' of doin' is incredibly dangerous."

"It's a giant bird." Sam was still fuming, but his thoughts were rapidly getting muddled and waylaid by present company. "I was using birds for target practice as soon as I was old enough to hold a gun."

"This isn't exactly a pheasant we're talking about here. This is a fairytale monster that turns children inside out."

"I've hunted worse." Which was not to say that he'd ever even once wanted to be a hunter. He hated everything about this lifestyle. But he was good at it. "I'll be fine."

"A sweet young thing like yourself? It' be hardly able to resist." Which managed to sound less like a compliment and more like a dig at the fact that Sam was still so very young.

Sam let his arms fall open wide, the wiry muscles flexing in a way that surely would intimidate no one. "I would take its head off."

"Enthusiasm like that's a thing to be admired. But decapitation isn't the way to kill this thing."

Very few things that Sam had ever heard of _couldn't_ be taken out with a good old fashion beheading. "You telling me that it wouldn't at least slow it down?"

"You just don't have to go through such lengths." A slow smile made his dwindling cigarette bobb. "All you need is silver dipped in rose water- a knife or a bullet. Right into the heart."

"Oh, _that's all?_ "

"Not as hard as it sounds."

"Then how come you've been looking for this thing since, what did you say- since the thirties- and you haven't taken it out?"

"Told you before, I had more pressin' hunts far from here."

It was weird enough to consider this strange man here a fellow hunter, much less to be at ease with the thought that he might have been around for eighty years, doing the same sort of job that had been wearing down Sam's father almost beyond recognition in less than twenty. There wasn't a visible scar or dent on him (other than his bruised hand), and the clean lines of his face said that he couldn't be over thirty. This man talking to Sam couldn't be a hunter. He doubted that the guy was even human.

But Sam didn't doubt that he was willing to help them.

It was sort of nice to have someone on their side.

There were muffled sounds of yelling from back in the motel room. Dean and Dad getting into it. They were wasting time. This whole mess of a hunt had gone on for far too long. "I've got a silver knife… you know where we can find rose water this time of night?"

The man tossed his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under the heel of a boot, coming away from the wall with a glint of amusement in his eyes. "I never said I was gunna' help you with this asinine plan of yours."

"You didn't say that you weren't going to either." He latched on to the gap between what was being said and what wasn't. "You know how to find this thing, right? That's why Dad called you."

Those husky blue eyes of his flicked towards the closed door that did little to mask the sounds of shouting, but he didn't make any kind of denial to Sam's accusations.

"So you make the trap- I set it- and then I can get hell out of Alabama and go somewhere that the air isn't made of hot soup." The humidity and overwhelming heat had snuffed out pretty much every helpful or kind feeling within Sam and left him with nothing but defiance.

And their hitchhiker gave him a string of words that still weren't a 'no'. "Don't think your daddy's going to be too happy about all of this."

"Do I look like I give a fuck what either of you think?" Sam felt that little thrill roll through him at the blatant use of profanity that he usually got in trouble for. "He wants so bad for me to be a hunter, then I'm going to hunt- and you're going to help me. Unless you don't think you can catch this thing?"

The man folded his arms over that clean white shirt of his, a hook of a smile tilting his head just so. "First impressions aside, I'm startin' to think that out of the three of you boys, you might be the most dangerous."

" _And_?"

"And I've got some rose water in my case."

.:.

Usually, Sam wasn't allowed to go further than a few city blocks from either his brother or his father. He honestly couldn't remember the last time that he wasn't within shouting distance of Dean and it was a strangely exhilarating feeling to be on his own.

Or at least, mostly on his own.

The lack of complete solitude might have had something to do with that curl of excitement.

He'd rescued a knife from the trunk of the Impala, not really sure what else he should bring- but through the back window of the car he watched the other man fish out that battered guitar case of his. Pretty much anything could be in there, so maybe they were good on supplies.

They left the hotel quickly. The hunt starting in earnest, because there was only a very finite space of time to work before John realised that the man he'd brought in to help them had spirited away his youngest son.

And that man that was meant to help them was keeping pace so easily with Sam, despite the weighted case that he carried against his back. "We need trees," he mused seemingly to himself as the walked. "It doesn't hunt out in the open."

The two of them didn't have far to go. The motel that they'd stopped in for the night was just barely inside the city limits, only a few blocks from the park that the last victim had been found in.

Nothing had really changed in the last hour since they'd left. A line of swings swaying listlessly in the sluggish breeze. Play equipment that hunkered low over piles of woodchips. Baseball diamond that needed its lines repainted. The whole place sleeping with a quiet sort of spell that only night time playgrounds and abandoned shopping malls seemed able to produce.

Sam and the man that Sam was pointedly not looking at passed quickly through the manicured parts of the park and on into the tree line. The grass was long out here, maintenance crews not bothering to come this far, and Sam's feet kept getting tangled in the underbrush. Spanish moss hung from branches and he batted them out of his way like spiderwebs.

"And you think it'll come back here?"

"It's not like the more human shaped sorts of monsters you boys usually go out huntin'." The stranger was looking up towards the sky, reading unknowable patterns in the stars. "It goes where the food is. Not much more complicated than that."

And the best kind of food apparently was a defiant child out at night against their parent's wishes. A naughty child. And Sam had never been a good little soldier like his big brother. It was one of the reasons that this idea of his was so sure to work.

But the world was full of defiant children, and it meant that this nachtkrapp thing had a veritable smorgasbord to choose from. Sam wasn't the only treat on the menu, and he wasn't really all that sure how to make himself stand out. Bait was only good if what you were fishing for noticed you were out there wriggling.

"How's it going to know to come _here_ though?" Sam found that despite his best intentions, he really, really liked looking over to his left to see that sharp profile and easy curve of lips. The small movement making it almost impossible for him to move over the uneven ground without tripping over his own feet

"You'll just have to get it's attention," came the simple instructions.

"How?"

"Well… you're already out against your daddy's orders. What else has he told you not to do?"

The line of logic resonated with Sam. He saw where it was going, but he didn't know where to start. There were practically a million things that John had ordered him not to do. Rules, and rules upon rules- but that's not what he was being asked.

"I'm not allowed to drink," which was laughable, seeing as Dean had given him his first beer on his fourteenth birthday. "Swear. Carry a gun in public. Talk back. Talk to strangers. Drive the car. Hunt on my own." All of the above increasingly stupid as they were all basically part of the job description, either out of necessity, or as a coping mechanism.

"Well... get to it, boy."

"Get to what?"

"Sin to your heart's content." He instructed as he lowered his case to the grass and popped the clasps- but from where Sam stood he couldn't see what all was inside. "You're already out past your bedtime. Show us what else you can do."

Sam was also hunting on his own, and _technically_ talking to a stranger. So… so far so good?

But he'd never been asked to openly break rules before. Doing it on command sort of defeated the purpose of doing it at all. But he tried- if only because it seemed like the easiest way out of this hunt and this heat.

"Fuck!" He shouted up into the trees, and then laughed. An odd, nervous energy curling through his stomach as he swore up a blue streak like a more conventional hunter would do with a moose or duck call.

"...a dangerous and strange boy." The other man muttered under a breathy laugh. He pulled things from his case with quick, practiced movements. A gun. An old heavy looking Smith and Wesson revolver.

"Is that a .44?" Sam frowned. "You won't need it. I brought my knife."

"That's all well an good, sweetness," He rested the revolver against his thigh while he pulled out bullets. "But I don't really plan on lettin' this thing get close enough to you for a knife to be of much use, if it's all the same. Your daddy made me a deal for my help on this- and I aim to keep up my side of things." A small clouded flask was unstopped and the liquid inside was poured over the bullets he held.

Sam took a few cautious steps over to where the other man was readying himself, enough to get a glimpse into that very heavy case. Enough to see that it was every inch like the trunk of the Impala. Nothing surprising and everything dangerous. The first and only reassuring thing for Sam since they'd picked the guy up a few hours back.

Carefully he held out the knife that he'd brought, handle first. It was taken from him and doused with water that reeked of flowers before it was handed back.

"Between you and me though, I think your daddy plans to try an kill me once this is all over an done with."

Maybe Sam really was a bad kid- because he didn't come to John's defense. It didn't even cross his mind to. To be fair though, the man sitting a few feet from him was almost definitely the sort of thing that the Winchesters usually hunted.

He wanted to ask if his dad had a good reason to put this man down. He wanted to ask what this man even was. Or at very least, his name. How they'd managed to summon him with chalk symbols scrawled over the hood of a car.

But a noise crept through the night, drifting on the wind, turned around by the trees until it was impossible to tell which direction it originally came from. It was an unnatural sound. Something that made Sam think of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park. A weird, crawling, throaty noise that trembled and shook like a sigh- and it made Sam want to peel off his skin.

His throat had gone dry. It wasn't like he hadn't seen some nightmarish hell beasts during his life. He'd been helping on hunts for years. But Dean had always been beside him and it was funny how much difference the present company he was with altered his confidence level. "What's that?"

The bullets slid solidly into the gun and the man rolled the chamber down along the palm of his hands. "That's what ya'll have been huntin'."

The sound came a second time, a bit closer, but still as hard to pinpoint. "How big is this thing again?" Sam hefted his knife- or more correctly, his _brother's_ hunting knife, but Dean wasn't the sort to get mad about sharing supplies.

"Well, I've never seen one in person." The blonde man stayed sitting, though he closed the lid to his case. "I know it's big enough to pick up a child… you might be pushing the weight limit though." He smiled at Sam, showing none of that usual tension that racked a hunter who was being circled by a monster right out of a dark fairytale. Other than the fact that he was sitting in a dark forest holding a gun, he looked positively relaxed.

Branches snapped and things amongst the trees rustled, and if it hadn't been for all the leaves getting between them and the moonlight then there would have been a better chance to see the thing bearing down on them.

A few days back when Dean had described the beasty as moving like a shadow, Sam hadn't quite understood. Tonight, sharing the woods with the damn thing, his brain actually caught up with the idea as the mottled shadows they stood in suddenly churned and burst with nauseating, rolling movements. The smell hit Sam before the bird did, giving him roughly two whole seconds for the contents of his stomach to make a lurch for freedom as he gagged, before he was knocked off his feet.

There was a weightless moment of being airborne, where things like 'up' and 'down' held no meaning what so ever. But the movement was interrupted by the sturdy trunk of a tree, and somewhere between the ringing of his ears and the choking sound of his own ragged breath, there came three rapid fire gunshots. Faster than you'd expect from a revolver, but Sam was struggling to figure out how to get air in past the sharp crushing pain in his chest, and his mind didn't feel like focusing too much on the logistics of anything else.

Coughing, his mouth tasted both sour and metallic, and Sam couldn't figure out if he'd actually thrown up or just bleeding.

Or both.

It sure felt like both.

He'd gone from a nervous high to feeling half dead in less than a handful of seconds, and it was a hard adjustment to make.

Strong, cool hands slid along the sides of Sam's neck. They did nothing at all to sooth him and only made him more aware of the fact that the air around him was still heavy with that smothering southern heat. That he was slick with sweat and worse, plastering his shirt to him like a second skin.

"I need you to stay real still, sweetness."

Something was in Sam's eyes, and it stung as he tried to open them- but he didn't need to see to know who was leaning over him and cradling his face. He recognized the voice in an instant. It had been doing terrible things to him for the past few hours, after all.

"Sam," his jaw cracked as he worked out that single syllable. " 'm name's Sam."

"Allright... I need you to stay real still, _Sam_." Those hands slid down his neck and over his chest, seeming to sink into that piercing pain that had settled there. "Can you do that for me?"

And he wanted to struggle, to roll away from the other man's grasp- but Sam had been hurt before. He'd broken ribs before. He knew this feeling and he knew that moving too much would only make it worse.

So he lay as still as he could, trying to take catalog of the bumps and cuts- and he'd never had a broken rib that hurt this bad before. That had made it so hard to breathe. That had made each inhale take on a sharp wet sound. That was probably a very bad sign.

The pressure of those hands against him helped to remind Sam of the fact that he was still alive for the time being. A nauseating weight that moved along the pain in his chest and left behind a numb sort of tingling that was anything but terrible.

The bubbling damp noise eased from Sam's breath along with the pain. It cleared his mind enough to let him follow more complicated thoughts than ' _ow'_ , and left him wondering what exactly the big plan now was. "Is it dead?"

"It's twitchin' a bit- but it ain't getting back up."

That coppery taste was still thick on the back of his tongue despite the lessening of all other ails, "what are you doing?"

"Just puttin' you back together." The man murmured with that slow, sweet drawl of his. "Don't want to give your daddy any reason to come lookin' for me."

Shaking, Sam wiped a hand over his eyes, clearing them of sweat and whatever else was blinding him. Though even after some careful scrubbing, his sight was still bleary at best, red tinged, and stinging like salt. "How bad is it?"

"Less and less bad." The man promised as the tips of his fingers slid their way up from Sam's sides and back to his shoulders. There was nothing actually upsetting or shocking about the movement of his hands. They were like a doctor's hands. Carefully light probing as if he were double checking for any breaks and bruises he might have missed.

Aside from the rock that he was laying on, Sam had started to feel surprisingly alright- and yet his breaths were turning ragged once again. No one had ever really touched him like this before. He could recall being punched and thrown. He'd been hugged, high-fived, patted on the head, arm wrestled, manhandled… but not this way. It made his addled teenage brain race with all sorts of strange and confusing feelings.

A lot of questions were rioting through Sam, but none of them came out. He just lay there, shell shocked. Partially because he'd recently been thrown like a ragdoll- but mostly because there were smooth hands pressed to either side of his neck once again. And when Sam should have been panicking over just what the hell kind of magical nonsense had just been done to him, all he could think of was that he hoped no one caught them like this. He'd never know how to explain himself.

"Not my best work-" the man sitting beside him admitted with one of those easy smile. "But you're all back in one piece now."

What Sam had really wanted to do was demand 'how?' or 'what the hell are you?' Instead he summoned up a polite and only slightly shocky sounding, "thank you."

"You're daddy's out lookin' for you. An I'm more than happy to help you get yourself into trouble- but you've got get to get yourself back out of it on your own."

Sam knew what those words meant, and still he asked, "are you... leaving?"

"He called me out here to help him hunt. Hunt is over, sweetness- an I got better things to do than answer to a man like John Winchester just why his youngest son is spattered in bird guts." He pulled himself up on those long legs of his and walked off between the trees to where his case lay mostly hidden in the long grass.

"Wait," Sam didn't exactly beg as he grunted and rolled onto a side in effort to find his feet. The movement broke his line of sight though, and by the time he pulled himself up he found himself alone.

Alone aside from the massive bird carcass.

And the rapidly growing louder sound of Dean calling out his name.

.:.

His brother and him both kept feathers as souvenirs, even if Dean hadn't been much of a help on that particular hunt. He'd just grinned and said he was proud of his Sammy and wanted to commemorate his first solitary hunt. John had been the opposite though. He'd been furious.

But what else was new?

For years he'd been either mean and sober, or mean and drunk with no patience at all for his orders being ignored. There was nothing new or surprising about what followed on the way back to the motel, or back in the car once they'd got on the road again.

Dad left them in a motel once they'd reached Oklahoma, with a warning to his eldest to keep his youngest in his sights at all times- before he took off on his own to either drink or hunt, or some combination of the two.

Despite being so good at following directions, Dean managed to do it all without an ounce of joy. Sitting on the edge of one of the beds, holding a cold soda can against the black eye, and bruised jaw, and split lip that neither of them were really talking about.

Sam had sat himself down on the other corner of the same bed, knobby knees drawn to his chest, one of them peeking out of a hole where his jeans had torn. He was playing with his ill gotten feather. Bending it carefully and watching it snap back up with a sharp noise that cut the air.

They'd burned the rest of the thing's body- and it had somehow smelled even worse on fire than it had when it was alive. A smell that still lingered on Sam, and it was possible that he'd actually have to throw away the clothes he was wearing. They were darkly stained with blood and ick that had dried in a strange pattern that covered him from hair to shoes. And he'd cleaned off what he could from his skin back in the last motel before they left Alabama, but everything else seemed a lost cause.

"Go get a shower." Dean sighed. Not much fight in him now that all the yelling was over.

"The smell doesn't really bother me anymore." Sam swung the feather back and forth like he was conducting a symphony, liking the way that the impossibly black thing looked as it moved.

"Well it bothers me." Dean grumbled, getting a foot against Sam's leg and lightly kicking. "You smell like you've been bathing in garbage."

"So you're saying I smell like you?" He teased. It was nearly five in the morning, and by all rights he should be exhausted. But he found himself smiling. Happy to be alive. Happy to have Dad gone. Happy to say he'd hunted without his family's help.

"I'm saying you can drag your sorry ass into that shower, or I'll do it for you. Don't think that just because you managed to make it through tonight that you're suddenly too big to listen to me." These were not idle threats on Dean's part. Despite the beating he'd taken tonight, he was still more than capable of picking up his little brother and throwing him into the motel's little bathroom. They both knew it.

"Sorry about taking off like that-" Sam looked at their muted television instead of his brother. The early morning news casters with their wide fake smiles and brightly colored sports jackets. "But I knew it'd work, and I really, _really_ just wanted to get out of there. I felt like I was going crazy cooped up in the car, and with that heat and… and just everything."

"You did alright for your first time on your own- but you still smell like ass." Dean couldn't just let a complement stand, though a bit of a smile could be seen peeking around his improvised ice pack.

"I wasn't all on my own," Sam pointed out with only a hint of resentment. He knew he'd pretty much only served as bait for the giant bird, and hadn't done really anything else aside from look good enough to eat. But he didn't feel a need to really give a rundown on who did what exactly. The thing was dead and he'd helped. There was no need to admit to the fact that he'd been thrown and broken and bloodied. Little details like that would only worry his brother.

"Yeah well, the weirdo just cut and ran once the thing died, so I'm going to give all the credit to you." Dean lowered the soda can enough that he could pop the top and take a sip. "You two hook up after you snuck off?"

Sam felt heat instantly crawl up his neck and over his cheeks. "What? No. We didn't… oh my god, we just went to the park and killed the bird thing."

A soft chuckle came from his big brother, and he did what he could to muffle it in his drink, not quite looking at Sam.

"Shut up."

"It's your first gay crush, Sammy. Like I'm really going to just let it go that easy."

"Was not."

Eyebrows raising, Dean managed to look mildly surprised. "You saying there was another guy before this?"

That was the opposite of what Sam was trying to say, but all he managed to get out was a tight, "I hate you sometimes," before tossing aside the feather and stomping to the bathroom.

By the time that Sam had scrubbed himself clean and popped his head out of the bathroom, he saw that Dean had given up on consciousness. Sleeping mostly face down on the bed, still fully dressed and snoring softly. Sam crept across the carpet, holding a scratchy towel tight around his hips while he shuffled to where they'd tossed their duffle bags beside the front door. He dressed quickly and, not having the faintest idea of when their dad would be back and wanting to use the second bed, he crawled in beside Dean. He left as much space between them as he could, though with a queen sized bed, that wasn't much.

He dreamt of their hitchhiker- the first of many, many times that Sam would have such dreams over the next few months. He was laying in the grass again, the man leaning over him with his hands moving slowly, only in the dream there were no broken bones to find, and there was no damp tshirt to interrupt the touch of fingertips against skin.

Sam woke up sweating, feeling dazed and distracted in ways that were a bit embarrassing when he became aware of the fact that his brother was sitting on the edge of the bed.

The television was on, the volume turned up, his big brother's shoulders hunched and defensive. Easy to read emotions even with his back turned to Sam. His body language giving away everything.

Groggy, Sam sat up, folding his hands in his lap to hopefully hide everything his body was doing without his permission. "Hey… that's… uh, it's a bit loud, isn't it?"

If Dean's shoulders raised any more he'd be hiding his ears. "Yeah, well, you were getting a bit loud- and I can't exactly leave the room."

Sam had thought that there was no way possible that he could feel more awkward about waking up in the same bed as his brother while so achingly hard that his shorts were damp- but there it was. And knowing that Dean was aware of it was definitely worse.

There weren't a whole lot of options for him other than " 'm gunna' go take a cold shower," he mumbled as he made a less than graceful break for the bathroom. It was his second shower in just a handful of hours, though this one was satisfying in ways that the first one hadn't come close to. Getting off to thoughts of winter blue eyes and strong, confident hands, and it was almost comforting to Sam that at least in this singular way he was still very much a regular teenaged boy.

Every other part of his life felt wildly out of control, and he couldn't remember the last school that he'd gone to where he hadn't been considered some kind of freak. But there was something very natural feeling about being alone with his thoughts while the water ran over his back- regardless of how new and confusing these kinds of thoughts were to him.

It didn't seem like Dean was all that into the daytime court show that he was watching, but he certainly kept his eyes fixed on the screen when Sam came skulking back into the room. Pointedly not looking at his brother, Sam grabbed a book from his duffle bag. It was just some tattered, dog eared book that he'd found left behind in a roadside dinner. Nothing special, but he could pretend to be reading it while avoiding talking to his brother.

Dean had other plans though, "we need to go over ground rules again, Sammy?"

"No."

"You sure? Because a guy shouldn't have to wake up next to his brother with somethin' like that going on." Dean kept going. "I was seventeen once too, horney as hell, and stuck in a motel with a squirrely little kid. So I know what's up. But you've got to find alone time for that, man. And that time ain't when you're in bed next to your brother."

That book was raised up until Sam's nose almost touched the pages. "It wasn't on purpose."

"Yeah well, next time it happens you're sleeping on the floor."

It was a reasonable request. Sam would have said the same thing if their situations had been reversed. He still wanted to argue though, just a natural reflex to being told what to do.

"Dad probably won't be back for another day or two…" Dean wanted to be a good brother. It meant that he didn't really know when to shut up. "We can go into town and find you a someone to kind of work out a bit of that frustration with and he never needs to know about it."

Which was weirdly not the first time that Dean had offered to help get his awkward kid brother laid, but that didn't make it any less uncomfortable. He was, after all, nearly eighteen and long past overdue- at least by Dean's calculations.

"You think we're going to be in any one place long enough for me to actually finish my last year of High School?" Sam asked instead, taking small satisfaction in seeing his usually so composed big brother stiffen. It was the only topic he could think of that would be worse than the one that Dean had brought up. At least this was one that Sam could control.

"Does it matter?"

"What do you mean, 'does it matter'? Of course it matters."

That got a laugh out of Dean, so there was that atleast. "You're smarter than any of the kids in any of the schools that you've ever been in, Sammy. Unless you really want to be there to rub it in how much better you are, then I don't see what the point is."

"The point is to graduate and get into a good college."

Dean turned, looking over his shoulder and fixing Sam with a steady gaze.

Oddly, he still seemed to think that there was a possible outcome to all of this where Sam stayed with them and kept hunting. And Dean hated any indication that things weren't going to stay the way that they'd always been. It shook his world view. He was a man of habit, after all.

"I can't keep this up, Dean." Sam pressed his ignored book to his chest and looked around the little motel room with it's water stained ceiling and yellowed wallpaper. "I don't want to live like this."

"You're a good hunter, Sammy." He said it so firmly, in that unshakable way of his. "It's just… it's just growing pains. You and Dad won't always be at eachother's throats." He half turned on the bed, curling one knee as he moved to face his little brother more directly. "You're getting older, and pretty soon you and me can hunt alone together. No Dad. No none of all this stress. Just the two of us against the world like when we were kids."

But Sam didn't believe that- and he honestly didn't think that Dean did either. But he knew that his brother _needed_ to believe in it. Sam couldn't offer that kind of comfort though. "I've already started applying to schools."

The people on the television kept arguing, harsh words cut short by the judge's gavel. Verdict was passed to startled gasps, and then credits were rolling as an announcer came on to talk about the next episode that would be coming on right after a quick commercial break.

Dean's split lip made his smile crooked, and the labored expression never reached his eyes. Every line of his body was tensed with something like pain- except that determined smile. "Yeah?" Forced cheerfulness to tamp down all other emotions. He wanted to be supportive of Sam, even if it was killing him. "Well, which one do you think is going to be lucky enough to get you?"


	4. Chapter 4

They'd been drinking. One of those things that Sam knew was a bad idea, seeing as he was only seventeen and still years off from being legally old enough to partake in such extracurriculars. But he was fairly certain that those kinds of rules were in place to keep minors safe. And here he was, holed up in a motel room in nowhere Alabama, sharing a bottle of Wild Turkey with his big brother while they took turns yelling advice at the Stormtroopers on the television- and how could there possibly be any safer place for him in the whole world?

"How could you miss?" Dean demanded to the white armored figures shooting wildly all over the screen. "How could he miss? Chewie was like three feet from him."

"You know, it doesn't have to be a _he_." Sam thought the deeply thoughtful thoughts that only the slightly drunk could manage. "It could have been a lady Stormtrooper."

"What did you just say to me?"

Sam grinned, wild and loose, loving how his brother had turned to face him so as to better fully show his disgust with the suggestion. "There could be female Stormtroopers, is all I'm saying."

"Nah, man. Girls are too smart to get mixed up in that kind of stuff."

"What about Leia?"

"A babe like her?" Dean laughed and took another swig from the slowly diminishing bottle. "She's a complete badass, not some clumsy soldier. She actually hits what she's aiming at."

"You've just got a thing for girls with guns." Sam argued, wrestling the bottle from his brother. "You got all weird for Sarah Connor too."

"Everyone, and I mean _everyone_ \- every human being on the planet with a pulse, and most of them without- had a thing for Sarah _Fucking_ Connor. And if you're saying that you didn't then all I want to know is, Sammy, is just how gay are you and how the hell did you manage to hide it from me this long?"

Sighing like he was injured, Sam took a sharp sip of the drink he'd stolen. "It was one little minor crush on one single guy." He wrinkled his nose as the burn of whiskey seared his throat. "It wasn't even a whole crush, Dean. It was… it was more like a half of crush. More like just slightly distracted. I don't like guys."

If Dean rolled his eyes any harder he'd have hurt something. "You liked _that one_ though. Don't even try an tell me otherwise."

Through the warmth of the summer night, and the heat of alcohol churning in his gut, Sam blushed. "I liked that one," he admitted sullenly, "but it's not a big deal. He's gone and I'm… and I'm over it."

"That was like four days ago, man." Dean looked suitably impressed under that warm haze. "You get over things a hella' lot faster than I do."

Unfortunately that was a lie. Sam didn't get over things faster than Dean, he was just decent at lying about it. Truth be told, over the past two nights, he'd been haunted by the idea of those very capable hands sliding over his bare skin, and that crooked smile curving around indecent promises. Sam had just gotten a bit better at making sure that Dean was well asleep and as far away as possible before he let himself indulge in those little fantasies.

He wasn't proud of it.

How can you be proud of getting all hot and bothered by a man who almost definitely wasn't human? Whose name Sam didn't even know? Who, most importantly, hadn't shown any indication of returning any of those uninvited feelings, much less even being aware of Sam having them.

"Don't hog the booze." Dean lectured, holding his hand out and so easily moving on to more important things than his baby brother's wavering sexuality. Because apparently Dean really, really, just didn't care about things like that.

It would have been more comforting to Sam if he could have managed to feel the same way.

He fell against his brother's side, passing over the bottle of whiskey and pointing at the TV. "How is it that they're related? Luke and Leia... she ended up a badass, and he's such a complete weenie."

"How's it that _we_ ended up related? Talent doesn't alway run in the family, Sammy."

As insults went, Sam almost didn't even feel like acknowledging that one. "Oh come on. Don't be so hard on yourself, Dean. You're not _as bad_ as Luke."

"Shut that mouth of yours. I'm Leia. You're Luke."

"Am not,"

"Please- you've got the _sensitive_ hair and the whining down to an art. I'm the hot one who saves the day and-"

"...and kisses Harrison Ford?"

Dean's laugh was a little too loud and open. His whole body curling towards Sam in that easy way that he did when it was just the two of them. "Well, that's where the thing kind of falls apart- but the rest of it holds up."

Sam half layed there, propped up at a funny angle against the headboard, watching his brother chuckling to himself and going back to criticizing movie characters like they'd never gotten off track. And Sam wondered just what the hell was wrong with him. Wondered what was wrong with his head and his heart that laying here in tshirt and boxers, with salt on the windowsills and a sawed off on the night stand, watching Dean drinking and grinning, with sweat at the small of his back despite the soft hum of the window AC unit that was really doing it's best- why was Sam happy?

But it didn't take a whole lot of deep reflection for him to figure out why this was 'ok' and everything else was torture. Regrettably, he chose to voice that thought out loud. "What if Dad never came back?"

Dean sputtered, wiping a glint of whisky from the corners of his mouth. "He's on a hunt. I told you. It's just routine ghosts and he'll be back in no time."

"I _know_ that's what he said. But… but what if he doesn't," and Sam shouldn't sound so hopeful, but it was just one more way that he wasn't ok. "I mean… we wouldn't have to hunt anymore. You and me could settle in somewhere and just-"

"Sam. Don't." Dean set aside the bottle, a little clumsy and the glass knocked against the wood of the side table. "We're hunters. It's what we do-"

"It's what _you_ do. It's what _he_ does." The whiskey was talking, and Sam couldn't seem to get it to shut up. "But it's not me. And I fucking hope he never comes back. We're better without him and you know it."

Dean pressed a hand over his eyes and made a frustrated noise.

"I-I love you." Something that he probably hadn't said since he was about eight and it started becoming uncool to tell your brother that you loved them. "And you know I'd follow you anywhere. But I can't keep after you if you're following him I can't."

"God. Sam, shut up. I'm not drunk enough for this."

"I called Bobby and,"

" _Bobby Singer_?" Dean let his hand fall from his face and he gave Sam baffling expression. "We haven't seen him in years. Not since him and Dad had that fight."

"Yeah. Dad and him had a fight. That doesn't mean he told us to fuck off. I send him letters a few times a year, call him now and then." Sam drew his knees to his chest, suddenly feeling vulnerable under Dean's heavy gaze and the weight of all that alcohol. "He said I can come stay with him."

"Dad will kill you-"

"You can come with me."

"No. I can't." It wasn't clear if Dean meant that he physically couldn't, or just that he wouldn't. Sometimes it was hard to tell where his loyalties lay.

"I'm thinking of leaving tomorrow, before Dad gets back."

"Dude. If you leave again when I'm supposed to be watching you, Dad will kill _me."_ Dean wasn't telling him this to be conversational. He was begging Sam. Pleading with him while the bruise around his eye and mouth still hadn't faded past a sickly green.

Sam looked down at his knobby knees and the long line of his bare legs. He was exposed and hurt in a way that he hated to be with his brother. Because Sam had wanted to hear a 'yes'. He'd wanted his brother to promise that they'd run away together. He'd wanted Dean to put an arm about his shoulders and… and… and just for things not to be as terrible as they'd been since as long as he could remember.

"I'll make you a deal, Sammy." Dean knocked their shoulders together and lingered, some kind of comfort in that touch. "Stick it out for the rest of summer. Hang in there a little longer. I'll talk to Dad. I'll explain to him how important this is for you to finish up school-"

"He doesn't care about what's important to me."

"I'll talk to him." Dean promised, and then sharply changed the subject. "Now come on. I challenge you and that big brain of yours. I bet I know the rest of this movie better than you."

Spirits slightly dimmed, Sam still smiled. He knew what a challenge issued during a Star Wars marathon meant. "You always lose at this. I don't know why you keep torturing yourself."

"Big talk for someone who lost last time." Dean passed over the bottle, "go ahead, Sammy. Get us started, you show off."

The challenge was to quote along with the dialogue of the movie, when you messed up or missed a line (and that included the sound effects of blasters and light sabers) then you took a drink and passed the bottle. They'd both seen the movies so many times over that it would have been hard to _not_ know every line by heart- but they'd started off the game less than sober which meant that things only went downhill rather quickly. The two of them laughing and pushing at each other while making tie fighter noises. Basically acting like jackasses- and that of course is when Dad came back.

The door swung open and there was John, all dark and disapproving as he always was, as if he'd forgotten how to smile years ago. "Just what the hell are you two doing?"

Dean quickly let go of Sam's shoulders, sitting up trying as hard as he could to not look drunk. "Nothin'... we were… we were jus' playing around, sir."

John looked very unimpressed. "Sam, get some damn pants on. Dean, if you can still walk straight, get you and your brother's bags out to the car. We're leaving."

"Ye'sir." Guilt and fear sobered Dean up enough to get him sliding off the bed and tripping over his own feet as he collected their duffle bags and went out into the parking lot.

Sam moved more slowly, because his hatred for John outweighed any fear he should have felt. He threw his long legs over the edge of the bed and looked around with exaggerated slowness to find the pants he'd taken off last night and hadn't bothered to put back on despite the fact that it had been nearly twenty-four hours.

" _Now_ , Sam." John moved around him, picking up the guns and knives that had been stashed within easy reach just in case. "What have I told you about drinking?"

"To 'do as I say, not as I do'." Sam muttered under his breath as he pulled his jeans on.

"Boy, don't give me any lip." John shouldered the sawed off. "You're too damn young to be getting drunk. And the both of you need to stay sober and sharp for whatever comes around."

"Nothing was coming around for us." Sam needed to keep a hand on the wall to stay standing upright, but otherwise he was as defiant and argumentative as he could manage.

"Get out to the car." Apparently John was tired though. Not up for an argument tonight. For once.

At least that's how Sam's soggy brain was choosing to interpret his father's bluntness. Sort of relieved that they could skip the yelling and fists for once and settling straight into the quiet. Sam used the walls as guidelines to get himself out of the room- uncomfortably aware of the fact that John was moving close on his heels.

Dad opened the trunk of the Impala, but instead of letting Dean toss the bags in, he nodded to the rest of the car. "Put 'em in the backseat."

A strange request, but one that was followed without question.

And then Dad was taking one of the gun boxes out of the trunk and passing it to Sam. "Backseat."

Sam felt like pointing out that traveling around with guns in the cabin of the car was a really bad idea- but if John wanted to risk getting pulled over by police and having to explain to the nice officer why there were about twenty unregistered guns just sitting out, then that was his prerogative.

"You two are a sight," John watched his sons scurrying about like drunken worker bees, "can't even keep your feet under you."

"We weren't planning on going out and getting into any fights or nothin'," Sam bore his teeth around the defiant words. He didn't know how to keep shut like Dean did- or maybe he did and he'd just stopped caring a few drinks back.

"A good hunter always needs to be ready for a fight."

"And if I don't want to be a 'good hunter'?"

John passed the last box of munitions to Dean as he fixed Sam with a look that would have frightened small animals. "Only two kinds of hunters, boy. Good ones, and dead ones."

Sam blew sweat heavy hair from his face, doing his best to look down at the man who'd towered over him for years. "Well I'm neither. 'm not a hunter."

Somewhere behind him, Dean started making a wounded sound, something too drunk and horrified to really help- but Sam wasn't really listening anyways.

John had taken a step closer, until their chests almost brushed and that sort of commanded every last drunken inch of Sam's attention focused right there.

"Boy, just what the hell do you think that I've been spending the last seventeen years of your life teaching you to do?"

"You've taught me to kill things that I'd rather never even known existed." Sam didn't back down. Didn't even bat an eye. So very lucid and sure of himself for someone who was as drunk as he was. "I never asked for this."

It must have been one hell of a hunt, because John still didn't rise to the bait. Still didn't argue. Just looked at Sam and spoke so simply, "and I never asked my youngest to be so drunk off his ass that he couldn't even keep his own against a couple human muggers, much less something with a bite to it."

"There are no muggers, Dad. There are no monsters. It's a motel parking lot in the middle of nowhere, at two in the morning. I could be drunk, or stoned out of my mind- it doesn't matter."

And it actually sort of did.

Sam just didn't know it when the words came out of his mouth.

He supposed that what followed was probably John proving a point. Trying to teach him some kind of lesson. To show why it was just so very important for someone like Sam to keep his wits around him at all times, because there never really was any telling when things would suddenly go sideways. Really no way at all to tell when your own father was going to sweep the leg, knock you on your ass, and tumble your stunned self into the trunk of a car.

And it wasn't like Sam had never been thrown in the trunk of a car before.

He was uncomfortably familiar with what to do and how to get out should he ever get kidnapped and locked into the back of a car. After all, years ago John had taken turns dropping his young sons into various car makes and models, until they both had shown that they knew how to get themselves back out. Of course… Sam had been significantly shorter the last few times... and distinctly more sober.

All sounds came muffled through the ringing in Sam's ears and layers of fiberglass lining, and steel and chrome, Sam could hear Dean yelling. Then John yelling. Then things got quiet.

The car rumbled to life around Sam. The utter darkness of the trunk so very absolute, and that did a lot to help keep him calm. Made the walls and the spare tire feel less like they were crowding in around him. His hands stung and his knees throbbed, one of them wet where the asphalt had cut open the bare skin that hadn't been protected through the hole in his jeans. His mouth tasted sour and the back of his throat burned. Sam was worried that he might have thrown up at some point during the tumbling, confusing buzz in his skull that was slowly fading since he'd cracked his head against the ground. More worried about how John was going to react than worried about how he was going to get out. But as the road bumped and rocked the car, and Sam slid and rattled his cramped limbs against the confines of the very, very, very enclosed space- the 'getting out' part became a growing concern.

Not just from the trunk of the Impala, but from every part this

He needed out.

One way or another, regardless of what it was going to do to his brother, Sam needed out.

.:.

It was one of those clear sorts of nights that lit up the world below. Sharp shadows from the trees casting hard lines over the crystalline snow. Sam could see for what felt like miles down the black line of highway, or at least far enough to see that there were no headlights coming in either direction. Which was bad news when you were out in the middle of nowhere trying to catch a ride.

His uncle had been letting him stay at his place for the past few months. Bobby didn't have any more love for John than John's youngest son did, and for the shortest while Sam had been allowed to go to the same school every day, eat in the same cafeteria every lunch, make a few friends, and even found himself a girlfriend (for which Dean had been very congratulatory over the phone about). But good things could never last it seemed, because John came back. He'd come back and rather forcibly took Sam with him and Dean to a hunt out along the coast of one of the great lakes. Everything right back to where they'd been like he'd never even left.

And Sam lost it.

Forty dollars taken from his Dad's wallet a few nights back, pared with the kindness of strangers had only been able to get Sam from Minnesota down through Wyoming. Now his pockets were empty though, aside from two fake IDs, a real one, and an acceptance letter from Stanford.

He only wished that he'd managed to take a bit more money with him when he left. A bus ticket would of been a hell of a lot nicer than thumbing his way down interstate 80 in mid March, when the world hadn't yet realised it was ok to start rolling the weather over towards spring.

The leather jacket that he'd stolen from Dean had been warm enough when the sun had been shining down, but as the night wore on he could feel the warmth leaving his body like steam. Like each silvery cloud of breath he let out was only helping to equalise his core temperature with the snow that he dragged his feet through. Colder and colder and colder still.

Any minute now though- any minute and he'd see that yellow glow of headlights coming towards him.

Another hour passed and the only vehicles he'd seen were big rigs that blew past without a moment's hesitation.

It was hard to make good time when he knew that he should have lingered in the last town. Doubt in his own poor choice eating at him, slowing his pace. Only a few hours back he'd been in a diner and the sun had been up. He could have stayed. The waitress had been a motherly sort of lady who'd kept refilling his soda for free, she'd even brought him some toast, and kept on not asking him questions. Sam could have been back there sitting in a booth and keeping to himself- but here he was, nearly ten miles from the lights and sounds of the town whose named he'd already forgotten, arguing with himself on whether or not he should turn around and head back, or just keep pressing forward.

Stubbornness was in charge of his decision making and for better or worse the night around him only grew colder and the long stretch of highway more and more deserted.

Despite not hunting for months, he'd kept himself active. He'd joined the track team, much to the school coach's delight- because if there was one thing that Sam was good at, it was running like hell. He could sprint like a real son of a bitch, as Dean had commented multiple times, but nearly a dozen miles worth of walking had happened tonight and even Sam had his limits.

He knew that the longer he was out here the harder it would be to keep going but still, Sam sat down to rest. The log beneath him was frozen solid and he could feel it eating at him through the backs of his jeans. He'd never really hitchhiked before this whole bravely-stupid running away from 'home' incident- and he was very sure that if he ever decided to do it again it would be pretty much any other time out of the year that didn't have snow.

In a few short months he'd be eighteen. Basically already an adult, but apparently still remarkably stupid as the gravity of this mess really sank in. Not the applying to college part. Not the telling his dad to fuck off part. Not the leaving behind his hunter's life. Those were all amazing decisions that he'd never regret. The stupid instead came from choices like walking his dumb ass out into the middle of nowhere.

This was probably one of the worst ideas he'd ever had.

Cell phones were something that only rich yuppies carried, and pay phones didn't come out this far. Neither did highway emergency boxes. No way for Sam to call for a ride, and even if he could, who would he call? He was states away from Bobby- and there was no telling where Dean was, how to contact him, or if he could even come. Those two unreachable people were the sum and total of Sam's whole support group.

No one and no way to call for help. Nothing but trucking roads and rangy pines as far as he could see. And when he'd left his dad and brother amidst yelling and curses, he'd never thought that he'd regret it so much.

But being faced with the threat of freezing to death in the middle of Montana, it's easy to second guess a lot of decisions.

He dragged a slightly numb finger through the virgin snow beside him, upsetting the perfect white crust. Loose circles and jagged lines that doubled back on themselves. A half remembered design at best. Arches drawn in the snow, and none of them seemed to have any kind of meaning, though Sam would have given just about anything for them to.

He looked at the lines that he'd made and waited, and waited, and wondered just what it was that he was hoping for.

The wind was picking up, and staying put became a considerably worse idea. So he hauled himself up to his feet and got back onto the shoulder of the road, pulling the collar of his ill gotten jacket up to his ears and turning back towards the town that he'd abandoned hours ago. At least he knew where it was. If he could manage to make it back, he could warm up in a diner or a bus stop. He could find a way to get his hands on some cash tomorrow or the next day. Enough for a bus ticket at least. It wasn't a great plan, but it was a plan, and it was better than sitting down and giving up.

He got maybe three feet away from where he'd been sitting before a sound of beating wings crashed around him. Sam ducked his head instinctively, looking up at the trees, searching for the startled flock of birds that wasn't there. Turning to his left, meaning to look out across the four lane highway, a muted sort of scream clamored through Sam's chest.

It wasn't birds.

It was a man.

Just a man.

A man standing there in the road where a man had certainly not been seconds before, and the familiarity of his face did nothing at all to ease his startling appearance.

Sam swallowed down the tightness in his chest and in place of a hello he asked, "how do you do that?"

Pale blue eyes crinkle on the edges as the man beside him smiled like they were old friends. "How does a bird with clipped wings fly?"

Sam wrapped his hands around the straps of his backpack and frowned around his lightly chattering teeth. "... _what_?"

"Carefully," the man answered his own question. "They do it very carefully."

Sam looked away, out at the empty road and wondered if he'd just made another amazingly bad choice. One more in a list of many, and what did it matter at this point? He'd started shivering. Shaking beneath the shelter of his jacket- and anything that was going to get him out of the snow couldn't be all that bad of a choice. Right? "I didn't know if you'd actually show up. I wasn't sure that I'd written it right."

"You did, and the call came through as clear as a prayer…" that haphazard curl of a smile opened to a flash of teeth. "I was curious what a mess of a kid like you could want from a mess of a something like me- so here I am." Months later and nothing about this man had changed. There was the same mess of short blonde hair, same sleepy eyes the color of fluorite, same slant of a smile, even what looked to be the same tshirt and jeans despite the winter chill- but his drawl had oddly vanished.

Something like that was hard for Sam not to notice, seeing as that low and sweet voice had been so very important to him as it reaped unholy havoc with his budding sexuality. "You're... different."

"I try to match expectations." The odd man that Sam had somehow summoned here let his arms fall open wide and defenseless. "Your daddy wanted help from the ghost of a hunter who was haunting the back roads and looking for closure from unfinished business. You weren't so specific. You just wanted my help… and I do believe that the offer in exchange for that help was _anything_."

Sam cringed, because he couldn't deny that he'd had that very thought, though it hadn't really been directed, and it definitely hadn't been spoken out loud. I was just one of those desperate thoughts that you try not to give too much leeway to, because it was insane.

Shakespeare wrote into his play Richard the Third ' _a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse_ ' and that line jumped to Sam's mind with such ferocity that he actually laughed. Here he was, much like Richard, calling into the night ' _a ride, a ride, my soul for a ride'_ and he couldn't help but wonder if it would all go as badly for him.

"I can keep it up, if that makes you more comfortable." That slow twang crept back into the man's voice, as sweet and dark as molasses. "But it takes just about forever to say anythin' this way, and you don't look like you have all that much time left before you shiver your sweet self into a stupor."

Asking for help when you don't expect an answer was one thing. But here Sam was, face to face with a man that had played an important role to some of his more erotic daydreams for weeks and weeks, someone who was a hunter, someone who wasn't a human, and Sam felt very lost.

"What exactly are you doing out here all by your lonesome anyways?" The cold didn't seem to bother the man. Then again the southern heat hadn't upset him all that much either. "Not exactly the place or season for a moonlit walk."

"I wasn't planning to walk. There's usually more cars out on the road." Sam took a deep breath and the air burned like ice in his lungs. He'd departed 'cold' some time back, and was settling deep into 'freezing' territory. Only distantly aware of fingers and toes.

"Are you on a hunt?"

"No," Sam didn't want to go into details.

"You hoping for a ride out of here?"

It would be a dumb thing to ask for considering the man beside him had no car and no obvious way to give Sam a ride anywhere.

When no direct answer came, he changed his question, "...can I take you some place warm?"

" _Please_..." other thoughts and words faltered and Sam did his best to hold his ground while he watched the man beside him open his arms up like he was expecting a hug. A different day. A different time. And well... perhaps. Right now though? Right now Sam would be willing to kneecap someone for a simple cup of hot coffee. "A cuddle in the snow isn't what I had in mind."

The suggestion pulled a rich laugh from the stranger beside him. "Not what I had in mind either. This isn't an ' _I Dream of Jeannie_ ' situation- I can't just wink, fold my arms, and take you with me. There's got to be some physical contact."

Of course there did.

Sam was quickly beginning to suspect that he'd passed out back on that log and this was nothing more than some sort of very strange dream. But, suspiciously, reluctantly, he still held out a hand towards the other man's like he meant to poke his outstretched fingers.

"Oh, now's not the time to get shy, sweetness." He took Sam's offered hand and used it as leverage to pull him closer. "You called me from the other side of the world to pull your skinny ass out of the snow. Come here." Pulling, and pulling, dragging Sam over the few feet between them until the toes of their shoes were touching.

The two of them were nearly the same height. They probably had been since they met, seeing as Sam hadn't grown too much over the past year. It made standing this close together rather intimidating, to be honest. Forcing down a well of unhelpful impulses, Sam did his best to pretend that it was just his big brother standing nose to nose with him. It helped keep him sane. "Are you planning to carry me? Because I'm a lot heavier than I look."

"Well, your weight can be your problem." His arms folded around Sam, one around his waist, the other around his shoulders, a hug very much like the opposite of what you'd give a family member- it ruined the Dean illusion. "I've got these clipped wings of mine to worry about instead."

Which probably made perfect sense to someone, but that someone was not Sam. He had other things to think about right then anyways. Like the fact that the world around them went tumbling sideways, and he had no doubt that he would have fallen over if it hadn't been for the man holding him so very close. He felt sick and dizzy. Knees weak and his lungs aching for air like he'd just been sucker punched.

"Breathe," a voice whispered in his ear. "Come on," the words tickled along Sam's cheek and neck. "In and out; you remember how it goes. Deep breaths. You're fine."

"W-what… what did you do to me?" His hands were hurting for how hard he was holding onto the other man.

"Took you someplace warm, just like you asked me to."

Gagging on unexpectedly salty air, Sam forced his eyes open. He couldn't even remember closing them. It was still dark, but the sky and trees had left. There were walls. Nondescript white walls and wooden floors, and behind Sam's reedy gasping was the murmuring sound of ocean waves.

"Where?"

"Tahiti."

Sam laughed though his throat felt raw. He was still winded, still not at all sure that his legs were capable of supporting his weight. " _Tahiti_?"

"Tahiti." He repeated against Sam's cheek like he meant to just keep it going indefinitely.

"The island Tahiti?" Because begging to be taken someplace warmer- and suddenly finding himself on the other side of the world were two very different things. "...that Tahiti?"

He laughed, this rich rumble of a sound that wasn't safe to be exposed to at such a close distance. "Do you know of any others?"

Sam swallowed thickly, still trembling, though he was beginning to think that it had less and less to do with the lingering cold that had seeped into his clothes and skin and bones. "Why?" The question broke into two over his chattering teeth.

"I once met a man who wanted my help and promised me his soul in return- but a filthy thing like that? There was nothing more I could have done with it." His breath was so warm along Sam's neck, and his arms still had not loosened. "So I took his summer house instead."

"Is that ...is that a good deal?" He wasn't sure he actually believed in souls, and if they were real it seemed a strange idea that they'd be worth the same as a vacation house on a tropical island.

"A house I can use, a soul though..." He took a small step back from Sam, the line of his arms sliding gently over the slick slides of Sam's jacket. "What would I do with a soul?"

And oh, but Sam's mind was in order enough to feel some deep kind of foreboding at a rhetorical question like that.

He couldn't seem to shake the punchdrunk feeling. It was by far the worst vertigo he'd ever had. Worse than a concussion. Worse than the first time he'd tried vodka. And as the stranger's hands fell away from him, and Sam was required to stand upright under his own power, he staggered loose and boneless. It left him gripping clumsily at the man's sides, messy handfuls of tshirt and knuckles braced against ribs- because his awkward death grip was the only thing keeping him from spilling to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

"Haven't quite got your land legs back yet?" And his hands slid easy and strong back under Sam's arms, holding him in place with as much care as if he were holding a piece of glass. "Well, I've been told the first time's the hardest- but your body gets used to it."

Words that were spoken more like a promise than a comfort. But Sam didn't want to get used to this kind of travel. Not that he was bashing this whole cuddle-thing that they had going, but it wasn't worth the price of admission. Not if getting here meant that Sam had to feel like he'd been hit by a truck.

He should have offered a thank you of sorts. He had been saved from becoming a popsicle after all. Instead Sam asked possibly the rudest question that he had ever, or would ever ask another , all feelings of gratitude aside, this man he was clinging to for support was a puzzle that he hadn't been able to crack for months, something illusive and strange that had been taunting him regardless of how many books he looked though (and Uncle Bobby had more books on lore than Sam had ever seen, so it's not like the effort had been half assed).

"Wh-what are you?" Sam was sure that it wasn't fear that made his words jitter. It's just that his body still hadn't gotten the memo that it could stop shivering.

With hooded eyes and something reminiscent of a smile, the man's teeth caught against his lower lip. Amusement and discomfort at the bluntness of it all.

For a moment Sam thought that his question would just be pushed aside- and the answer, when it came, sort of made Sam wish that it had.

"I'm an Angel."

Through the course of his life, Sam had learned to be ok with believing in most things. However, this claim caught him off guard. Honest, he'd been leaning towards some kind of white-witch, though he knew that the termanology changed when applied to men and women- but he hadn't been able to find anything more likely that matched up with even half of the things that he knew about the man that he was currently clinging to like a life preserver.

Angels had never really factored into his personal theology, though if he believed in God, he supposed that perhaps he had to accept a few extras that apparently went along with it.

"An... _Angel_?" Only, what very little lore he'd ever came across was as far from this man here as possible. Angels were supposed to be these timeless, emotionless, mighty weapons of lawful justice, not-

"We're not all harp wielding, feathery, rays of sunshine. Sorry to disappoint."

"I wasn't- I mean, I'm not… I'm not disappointed. I was- wait, can you read my thoughts?"

That laugh again, his thumbs making delighted little circles on Sam's upper arms. "Sweetness, I don't need to read minds to know disappointment when I see it."

Sam didn't know if he should be relieved that his often questionable thoughts were safe, or upset that they were apparently so obvious. He shifted his weight, experimentally pulling away just a touch for safety reasons. He made the decision to focus on something that he could actually have some control over. "Can you please just… just call me Sam?"

His hands fell away, apparently trusting in Sam to hold himself up if Sam trusted himself to do so. "I'll do my best. Come on, you're still shaking yourself apart. Go get yourself a hot bath, I'll see if there's any food laying around."

"Yeah..." Both offers sounded good and before he really had time to decide which one sounded better he was getting gently steered towards a hallway. "Um, w-what do I call you?"

"Me?"

"Your name," Sam swallowed hard, trying to forcibly make his body feel right again. "You do have one, right?"

"Naturally. God gave all his creations names after all." Was the non-answer.

Sam looked over his shoulder, frowning at the holy creature that stood behind him. "And you got stuck with...?"

"...Lucifer."


	5. Chapter 5

The list of things that scared Sam was not long. Clowns, snakes, what might happen to Dean eventually if he kept on hunting alongside their father, and more clowns. He felt comfortable adding 'standing a few feet away from the devil himself' to that fairly short list. And he felt very uncomfortable about the fact that he had no real weapons with him. A knife and some rock salt in his bag- and what sort of weapon do you need against something like this anyways?

There was a coldness settling into the pit of his stomach, a chill creeping up the base of his spine, that had nothing at all to do with the snow he'd left behind.

" _Lucifer_?"

"You sure are doing a lot of repeating yourself today, Sam. Did you hit your head at some point before I found you? Should I be worried?"

"Don't- ok." Sam held his hands up to stop whatever teasing sort of worry was being thrown his way. "You're _the_ Lucifer? Like _Lucifer_ \- Lucifer? As in Satan? The Prince of Darkness? The Evil One? Father of Lies? The … the actual devil?"

"Quite the little walking thesaurus, aren't you?" He _hmmed_ softly, obviously amused. "If it's all the same to you though, I prefer just plane and simple Lucifer. It means 'Light Bringer'," his smile went a little crooked, his nose wrinkling in a way that was almost cute, "makes me feel all _special._ "

"You're Satan?" Sam really needed some clarification here, because none of this was matching up to any of the imagery that he'd built around this particular mythological figure. The initial fear was fading quickly in the face of open confusion. "You can't be- no. You're not. You're just not."

He laughed. The devil laughed. And Sam was probably damned every which way because that smooth chuckle still did something awful to him.

"If it's any comfort to that pretty little head of yours, people who really had an ax to grind wrote me into their little books. I wasn't consulted and there's quite a few inaccuracies." He passed off a two thousand year old book of scripture like it was just a supermarket tabloid. "It's mostly all slander."

A strangled sort of laugh caught in Sam's throat. " _Mostly_?"

"Hey now- I wasn't the one bringing down plagues and killing first born. I wasn't drowning Jews in floods, or asking nice old men to sacrifice their only sons just to prove loyalty to me." He folded his arms over his chest, half masking a shrug. "All I did was talk a gullible woman into eating a piece of fruit. It's really not as big of a deal as people make it out to be. Now go warm yourself up. You'll feel better. I promise."

"There is no bath hot enough to make me feel better about this."

"Oh come on, Sam. I didn't kidnap you. You called me and I came. If I wanted you for anything sinister you would have known it months ago." For the briefest of moments his pale eyes wandered down the line of Sam- but he quickly focused back in on the younger man's face. "You're safe here."

"This is probably the least safe that I've felt in a very long time."

"Wow. Alright. If I didn't like you so much then that would almost be a little insulting."

"You are the actual devil." Maybe if he said it a little louder then the other man would start to understand the problem that Sam was facing here.

"And _you_ smell like you've been on the road for a few days." Which was probably true, and definitely not necessary to point out. "Please, do us both a favor and go get yourself cleaned up."

Sam stood awkwardly in the hall, unsteady on his feet, his resolve still not as strong as it should be. He wanted to bolt, because fighting here didn't seem like an option- but if he really was so far from Montana (in the tropics or otherwise) that he could hear the sea, then running wasn't on the table either. Where would he go?

"I'll find you some food." Lucifer promised again. It was a good promise-

And Sam's traitorous stomach growled at the offering. "I… yeah, Ok. A bath and some diner wouldn't hurt."

"That's the spirit."

There was probably something very wrong with the fact that Sam was going along with this. A tropical island hadn't really been what he'd had in mind when he'd dragged the design into the snow and _hoped_ for anything. But as strange as the turn of event had gone, it wasn't all that bad.

His backpack was dropped heavily as he nudged the bathroom door close behind him and shrugged himself out of the heavy leather jacket. Letting it fall to the floor as well, leaving a trail of snow crusted clothes from the door to the bath. Shivering as he turned the hot water on high, Sam knocked his bare knees against the edge of the tub.

It was by no means a small bathtub. He'd never seen one this big outside of movies- certainly there'd never been one in any of the motels that they'd stayed in before. A luxury that could have fit at least four awkward teenage boys.

Things ached, and there was a numbness to his joints, his lungs still burned as his body fought to deal with the very suddenly climate change- but he was adjusting. The clouds of steam curling up around him did a lot to help. But as he sank into the rising water he realised that he should have probably done more to keep his guard up. After all, nothing about this situation was remotely normal, and so by its nature just about every way Sam had placed himself into this was unsafe.

He'd been the one to call up the devil to ask for help though. He'd been the one to decide to put his trust in the poor excuse for an Angel down the hall. Honestly, he'd made worse choices recently.

Sam didn't scrub and get out like he usually would- so much as he just sank down and let himself become people soup. Chin deep in water hot enough that his skin was red. Boneless and relaxed. Or at least as relaxed as anyone could expect to be with the knowledge that the supposed embodiment of all evil was somewhere down the hall making him a very late diner.

He thought that if Dean knew about any of this that he'd have some kind of aneurysm. His baby brother hanging out with not just any old monster, but possibly the biggest monster that ever was- only _The Devil_ didn't really live up to any of the shock and awe inspiring terror that modern movies used.

Lucifer was... surprisingly low key, and frankly just not all that scary.

Real evil you could feel.

It crept along your skin and made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Made every sense of self preservation kick in. Adrenaline and fear and all kinds of base instinct to save yourself from the danger.

And then there was the man who was nudging the door open with an elbow while he balanced a bowl oh so carefully between his hands. A look of deep concentration on his face.

Very aware that he was still completely naked, Sam drew his knees up to his chest. "Didn't anyone teach you to knock?"

The food was held out like a holy offering, and the devil's gaze was cleanly platonic. "Samuel, there's nothing you've got that I haven't seen before."

Heat burning in his cheeks, embarrassment taking his warmth to a level that the bath hadn't been able to, Sam did his best to not seem naked. If not for the other man, then for his own peace of mind. "What is it?"

"Cereal." Lucifer kept the bowl steady.

"Cereal?" It wasn't unappetising, just sort of unexpected.

"...and you're sure there's not some kind of head trauma or something?"

Sam frowned slightly, realising that maybe he did sort of repeat himself a bit too much in moments of high stress, but at the same time, none of this felt all that real, and clarification would have been nice. "I'm fine."

" 'm not sure I believe that one." The bowl was set on the edge of the overly large tub. "Eat up. You're too skinny."

"...Raisin Bran?" Sam hesitated as he took the bowl into his hands, balancing it on bare knees, the ceramic cold against overheated skin. "The devil _would_ serve Raisin Bran."

Lucifer snorted lightly. "Not a fan of raisins?"

"No one under the age of sixty is a fan of raisins." He took a hearty bite none the less, mouthing around a mumbled, "thank you."

And the devil looked utterly charmed. "How did such a sweet little thing like you grow in the shadow of that bastard John?"

A fair question, but Sam had a better one. "I don't want to be rude, but can we make weird small talk later when I'm more… dressed?"

"More dressed and less wet?" His eyebrows hitched and that smile went ever so slightly crooked once more.

Sam was infinitely grateful for the soap clouded water that mostly hid his body's subtle but very involuntary response to that. He tucked his knees a bit closer, held his bowl of cereal more deliberately, and asked again, "please… can I be alone for just a bit?"

"Not used to eating around other people?"

"Eating isn't the problem." But he had a feeling that the devil knew that and was just giving him a hard time now. "It's the not wearing pants part that's freaking me out."

"Really? That's the part that I'm enjoying the most- but you're the guest, so..." he gave an loose sort of shrug, tilting his head and holding his palms open to show he meant no harm. Lucifer let himself out and the door clicked closed firmly behind him.

The flakes in his Raisin Bran had already started to get soggy. And eating cold cereal while sitting in a hot bath was one of the more peculiar things that Sam had done recently. It seemed that there was no way to salvage tonight though. Every part of it determined to be disagreeable and strange in all sorts of new ways that he'd never had to consider before.

Sam ate though, grateful for the food, especially considering that he hadn't been able to afford any real food other than toast and soda in the last twenty four hours. Raisins or not, it was good to eat something.

On the wall behind the tub there was a high window through which Sam could see soft rosy colors. Too late for a sunset, his internal clock telling him that it had to be around midnight. And he didn't want to believe that he was on a tropical island somewhere in the middle of the pacific, but all signs pointed to some definite time zone and longitudinal changes from where he'd been an hour ago.

Setting aside his empty bowl and spoon, he stood, shedding water as he stretched up and slid the window open- then he settled right back down into the water, relishing in the warmth and just enjoying the sound of waves. He'd always loved the ocean, even if very few hunts ever let the Winchesters linger too long beside the sea.

Weird company and circumstances aside, he was determined to enjoy what little shread of peace that he could find.

Around the time that the water had stopped steaming and Sam had half fallen asleep, the bathroom door cracked open again.

Sam opened his eyes and instantly curled back up around himself, trying for some shred of modesty. "Dude. I know it's your house and all- but _knocking_?"

"Oh, I don't mind." The devil waved it off and traded the dirty dishes for what looked to be folded clothes.

"T-thanks, but I can't-"

"They're not mine. Don't get weird about it."

"They're… they're not yours?"

"No. I went out and stole them… for you. They're yours now."

Sam felt his eyes go wide, because he'd almost definitely worn quite a few cast off or stolen clothes before, but never openly. Dean had never really said where the new clothes for Sam had came from, they just showed up from time to time after he'd outgrown or torn up his jeans and shirts.

"You didn't have to."

"It was my pleasure. I enjoy a little petty theft from time to time, you know… being the devil and all. And I was doing us both a favor." So self assured as he spoke. "We should burn the ones you took off."

"They don't smell that bad-"

"It's not the smell, Sam. I just can't handle the fact that you were wearing three to five flannels. No one person should ever have that much plaid on them."

"I was cold."

"You were like an army of lumberjacks mashed into one single, troubled, teenage boy."

Talking without clothes on was starting to feel less and less strange and that should have worried Sam more than it did. But he was too offended to focus on the rampant nudity. "I'm not a teenage boy. I'm almost eighteen."

"Eighteen? Well, you must be using a different counting system than me." Lucifer chuckled somewhere deep in his chest, hardly audible. "Either way- clean, warm, fed, soon to be fully dressed- and then sleep."

"I'm not complaining," Sam eyed the clothes and felt uncomfortably levels of gratitude. "But you don't have to take care of me."

"You promised me _anything_ in exchange for spiriting you away- and when the time comes to collect, I'd like to say without a doubt that I earned that _anything_ that you were so kind of offer up."

Sam sank lower into the cooling water. Defensiveness and concern mixing strangely through him. Thinking in a moment of desperation that ' _I'd give anything to get out of this mess that I've made'_ and knowing that someone planned to take him up on it, were two very different things. "What… um… what exactly are you expecting in trade? Because I don't have any money."

"Sam, you are currently relaxing in the luxury of one of my many ill gotten vacation homes. Money isn't really on my wish list."

"I don't have a house either."

"I don't want another house."

"...what _do_ you want?"

"Don't know yet." He turned to leave the room, hesitating in the doorway, "but once I figure it out, you'll be the first to know."

.:.

Oddly enough, despite the egyptian cotton sheets that were unbelievably soft to the touch, and the open windows that let in a gentle breeze along with the soothing sounds of the sea, and his comfortably full stomach, Sam didn't sleep well. He couldn't blame any of the tangible things around him. Not even his stolen sweats and tshirt .

It was simply bad dreams. None too specific- but he had a library's worth of nightmare fuel stored up, and it had been years since he'd last had a night's sleep without at least a little bit of trauma creeping in behind his eyelids.

Usually he just woke himself with a start, sweating and ready for a fight, only to be sleepily shushed by Dean, and left to settle himself down. This time was different. This time, instead of his brother's voice coming to him from the other side of a lumpy motel mattress, there was a steady hand smoothing over his shoulder. Instinctively, Sam reached under his pillow for a gun- but he was left grasping at nothing. No weapon of any kind, because he hadn't brought any with him, and it shifted his sleep addled brain instantly from fear tinted confusion right into open panic. And panic meant that he came up swinging.

His wild fist was caught easily though, and his eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness. Sam was left looking at the devil who was perched on the edge of the bed wearing a mildly concerned expression.

"You sure you're alright?" Lucifer asked, still holding Sam's fist so easily in his own. "Because you do an awful lot of yelling in your sleep for someone who's supposed to be ok."

"I-I just have these dreams sometimes." Sam swallowed down his hammering heart. "I'm fine."

"You do know that I can taste when you lie?"

Sam looked away, off somewhere at the wall as he struggled to wake up enough for more intelligent words. "Ok then I'm not fine… but I'm used to not being fine, so it's fine."

"... exactly just how long were you out there getting your brains frost bitten?"

"Shut up and give me back my hand."

Lucifer released him slowly, watching Sam like he expected some kind of sudden and erratic movement. "Should we be worried about exposure... or head injury- or are you just always this way and I never noticed it before?"

"You're kind of an ass, you know that?" Sam laid back down, subtly kicking his legs in an effort to untangle them from the sheets.

"It's been brought to my attention once or twice, yes." He confirmed with a hint of a smile.

At least one of them was enjoying this.

"I'm… I'm going to try and get back to sleep."

"Ooo, can I help? I'm very good at sleep."

"You said earlier that angels don't ever sleep." Sam frowned, because it had been a short but rather significant conversation they'd shared between the bath and Sam tucking himself in to what seemed to be the house's only bed.

"We don't need to. But you do. And the freaking out and slapping the pillows and blankets to the floor doesn't seem like it's doing you any good." He held his hands out, palms leveled with the bed, thumbs touching, like he meant to lay them on Sam and give him some kind of blessing. "I can help."

"...are you _sure_ that you're the devil?"

"Positive."

"Then why are you so… so nice?"

Lucifer laughed, his hands folding into his lap and his head falling back. He kept laughing, only calming down enough to look squarely at Sam and fall back into a second chorus of warm chuckles. "You're beautiful. You know that? I've been around since before building human beings was even on the to-do list. I remember a time before the Earth circled the sun. Before God even considered having a third child after me and Michael- and never once has anyone ever accused me of being ' _nice'_."

"Then what are you here doing to me?" Sam lay there awkwardly beside the other man. Watching that small space between them and oddly feeling that there was still too much of it for his own tastes. Too much room to breathe between himself and the ageless monster beside him.

"I told you, I'm earning whatever I'm going to take from you."

"Do you have any idea how terrifying that sounds?" Terrifying and very exciting in an awful sort of way that Sam didn't think he was ready to address outloud.

Lucifer laughed again, though it was more subtle, just a rumble of noise to go with his easy smile. "Sleep on it," the devil instructed. "If your night terrors, and those fading bruises on your arms are any indication, you've had a rough time recently-"

"If you're trying to tell me that I'll somehow feel better about summoning the devil with an open ended IOU, once I've had a good night's sleep, then I've got some bad news for you."

"Oh no. I expect that this choice is going to haunt you for the rest of your life." He grinned with a flash of teeth like match light in the darkness of the room. "I just think that you'll sound less like a raving lunatic once you've slept."

Frustrated, Sam rolled over onto his side, giving the man his back and grumbling to himself. He hadn't signed anything after all. So maybe one day, when the devil came to collect, Sam could just tell him to fuck off. It's not like the man would put him back in Montana in the snow in retaliation- so it wasn't something that he needed to worry about in this moment. Sleep was more important.

The fact that an arm was sliding heavily around his waist was much, _much_ more important.

"W-what are you doing?"

"Helping you sleep." The words were said so casually, like it wasn't at all strange for the devil to be laying down behind Sam, pressing the curve of his ribs to the rigid arch of the younger man's spine. "The weight will help settle you down."

Now, part of Sam was aware that he could just push the man off. That he could scurry away and make demands to be left alone, or to be taken somewhere else. Sam ignored that part of his mind as other parts of his body were shouting their opinions so much more persuasively.

Sam lay there making slow, tight fists in the bedsheets, asking his biggest hope in a strangled whisper, "are you using powers on me?"

" _Powers_?"

"Like… like mind control powers. Do angels have those?"

After a healthy moment of stunned silence behind him, there came an uncertain, "what?"

"Is that why I always want to touch you so bad?"

"... _what_?"

"I don't even like guys. But since the first time I saw you I've wanted to put my mouth on you."

The second silence was longer. "No… I, uh, I don't have mind control powers."

Which offered no comfort at all to Sam. "If you did, and you were, would you even tell me?"

"I've only ever been honest with you."

"Wow. That's not true at all. Seeing as the first thing you did when we met you was lie about who you were, you can't exactly blame me if I continue to not wholly trust you."

The arm around his waist tightened just a touch as Lucifer curled closer. "I've never lied to you."

"You told us you were a hunter," and Sam had been lied to more times than he could count, so it's not like the dishonestly really upset him, but he had no intention of just opening up his trust to the devil. Spooning was apparently an exception that only added to his ever deepening confusion- but trust? Nope.

"This body _did_ belong to a hunter. A brave and strong willed southern gentleman who didn't get to sort out that giant bird situation. I simply told his side of things." Which was splitting hairs, but if it was true then it cleared up as many things as it suddenly brought into question.

Sam stiffened. "What do you mean ' _this_ body'?"

"Angels don't get bodies of our own. Daddy dearest didn't think that we needed them." He sighed and the huff of breath tickled over the back of Sam's neck. "So when we walk around down here, like I've been doing for five thousand years or so, we need to borrow a set of legs. And this here was a man named Nick- a good man who never really got over the loss of his wife and child. And I can tell you, he would have been rather flustered to have caught the eye of a sweet young thing like you."

"You're possessing him?" A good time to pull away and start freaking out, but still Sam stayed, because even though he didn't want to admit it, the weight really was oddly calming. "Possessing, like a demon does?"

"No. No, no, no. Not like a demon does. It's all very consensual on this side of things." He promised, for whatever that was worth. "There are rules and I stick to them."

"And the devil is a stickler for rules?"

"I am. All angels are. It's one of the many things that make us better than you humans."

Sam took a turn laughing, ignoring the casually backhanded insult in the face of how ridiculous this all was.

Lucifer's hand curled, his fingers pressing into Sam's chest like he was trying to follow the lines of laugher where they bubbled up from his stomach. "Does that surprise you?"

"It surprises me how inaccurate all the lore on you is."

"By 'lore' do you mean Bible? Because I told you, that's a book made of lies and slander. And if instead you mean movies, I've gotta ask you, if strangers made a movie about your life, how accurate do you think would it be?" He knocked his knees into the back of Sam's thighs. "Now get some sleep. We can talk shop in the morning if you really want to."

"Yeah?"

"No. I'm just trying to get you to shut up." And maybe Lucifer really was incredibly honest, or he was just a sarcastic son of a bitch. It was hard to tell. "The reason we angels have lived so long is that hunters don't have the first idea who and what and how we are. I'm not about to bare all, not even to a little baby hunter like you."

"Who would I tell?"

"Even if you told just one person it would be too much. I like my quiet retirement." He hummed softly. "I'm like Elvis. Functionally dead to the world, and living quietly in seclusion."

"You own beachfront property in a tourist hotspot."

"A happy drunk tourist doesn't know when they're talking to the devil, and monsters don't really go on vacation."

Sam lay there so quietly, wondering why his life had felt a need to take such a turn from bad to… to whatever the hell this was now. "If no one is supposed to know, then why did you tell me?"

The simplest answer was whispered to the back of Sam's neck, "because you asked."

"You didn't have to answer."

"Go to sleep, Sam."

"Are you going to kill me?" And he should have felt afraid to even consider that option, but he only felt so calm and quiet- enough that he didn't fully believe that there were no special mind powers at play to keep him from freaking out. "Is that why you told me anything at all? Because you didn't plan for me to be able to tell anyone?"

A soft sigh warmed Sam's skin. "You can't see it- but I just rolled my eyes."

"I got a scholarship to Stanford… that's where I was going." Sam gave one of the only reasons he could think of, besides the threat of Dean, as to why it was important that he stay safe and not murdered here and now. "They're expecting me in a few days."

"I know."

"...you know?"

"I've been keeping an eye on you since last summer."

That quiet calm lapsed as Sam struggled with the news that he'd been low key stalked by the devil for a few months now. It would have been almost flattering to have caught the attention of something so important, but only if it wasn't so disturbing. "Sometimes you're really…really creepy."

"Creepy?" His chuckle was more felt than heard. "Nice _and_ creepy? I suppose I can live with that."

Sam didn't know if he could though. He watched the wall, and felt the comfortable shift of the other man's arm hooked around his waist, the way that their breaths had started to match up, the way that the devil's long toes were lightly adjusting the sheets down on the lower half of the bed- and Sam desperately struggled to remember why he needed to be more afraid than he was. "I would've thought that the devil had better things to do than watch some kid studying for his SATs."

"I _checked in_ on you from time to time, Samuel. I haven't been lurking in the dark corners of your life like some kind of voyeur. No rest for the wicked, as the saying goes. I'm a busy, busy man."

"Oh yeah. You look super busy."

A sharp huff of breath like a laugh moved over the back of Sam's neck, making his skin feel tight and his stomach do a strange little squirm.

"I came when you called, and I did what you asked of me- that means that you waived your rights to make sarcastic side notes."

Sam tucked his chin to his chest, curling just a little to unnecessarily hide a smile that he felt taking hold. "Obviously you weren't looking too closely when you were creeping on me, or you would have figured out that the sarcasm fills the hole where my soul used to be."

" _Mmm_ , kindred spirits, you and I." One of Lucifer's fingers traced a crooked line down the center of Sam's chest. "First time I saw you and that vibrant soul of yours, I knew I liked you."

No one should ever be happy to hear that the devil liked them.

No one.

Sam pressed his cheek into the pillow as his smile shifted to a grin that he didn't want. "What… what does a soul look like?" He'd wanted to say ' _my'_. Wanted to know what he was made of and what that might look like to an eldritch horror like the devil. But he wasn't quite brave enough to ask. As someone who already considered himself a Class A Freak, he really didn't need to know if it went deeper than just skin.

"They just look like you I suppose."

"You _suppose_?"

"Well, I'm not really sure. Angels don't see faces." Lucifer gave a little bit more of that free information that he's said he didn't plan to share. "We see souls. Just souls. We see what you really are- and you Sam are as bright, and as beautiful, and as awe inspiring as a summer lightning storm."

For a few long moments Sam had absolutely no idea what to say. But when in doubt, backpedal like hell. "You're unbelievably creepy."

The devil's arm tightened in something that might have been distantly related to a hug. "Go to sleep."

"And you'll be less creepy in the morning?" The emotional up and down of the last few minutes was taking its toll. He was exhausted and worn down after days on the road, not enough to eat, and persistent nightmares. Unconsciousness didn't sound like a bad thing.

"I promise to stay just as creepy, but I doubt that that will keep you from… how did you say it, ' _wanting to put your mouth on me_ '?"

Sam was grateful that he was turned towards the wall, because his face instantly grew hot. He'd have loved to deny those feelings that apparently amused the other man so much. Sam also wished that he'd never given voice to any of those longing daydreams in the first place- because they could have been easily kept to himself until the day he died. Sharing them had not offered him any peace of mind.

"Can … can we please pretend I never said that?"

"If I agree to your terms, then will you agree to mine, and shut up and go to sleep?"

"Yeah." Aside from the spooning and the offhanded complements it was just like being back with his brother. "I'll shut up and go to sleep."

"Then yes. We can pretend that humans aren't so very strange, even though we both know that you are." The devil shouldn't be so charming, but there he was.

And Sam couldn't help but settle into that arm around him. A comfortable weight that lived up to all its promises. And only seconds after he heard the promise of deniability, his eyes were drifting close. Overwhelming tired mixing with that inappropriately safe feeling that he knew he shouldn't have.


	6. Chapter 6

When Sam woke again it was without the stress of a jarring nightmare. Quiet morning sun touching his face, warming his skin and feeling as natural and peaceful as a Sunday morning. If it weren't for the sound of the ocean and the sharp salty tang in the air, he could have pretended that he was back at Bobby's. Calm and keeping an even keel on his boring and _normal_ life there. Though… that arm still around his waist and the solid warmth of another person in bed behind him… those were the sorts of things that went a long way to upset that happy little illusion that he would have prefered.

The devil's' fingers were idly stroking Sam's stomach, uneven movements, so slow and relaxed like you would pet a dog. But as casual and seemingly thoughtless as the touch was, it came against bare skin, tucked easily up beneath Sam's shirt, tickling slowly along the narrow strip of hair that marked the path between his belly button and more private things.

Shifting seamlessly from a dead sleep to a dead panic, Sam's breath was dammed up in his throat, caught behind his very frantically pounding heart as his peaceful morning fell to pieces.

"Good morning, sunshine," Lucifer's voice was roughened and uneven from hours disuse. Pleasant all the same though. That was a rather big part of the problem.

The fact that the string of bad choices yesterday had not been some kind of insane dream, and that the whole of the night had passed them by and here Sam was, still tucked warm and safely in the devil's arms, was a bit hard to deal with first thing in the morning.

Try as he might, Sam couldn't seem to manage words.

Couldn't even remember how to make them.

But what do you say when you find yourself uncomfortably turned on by The Devil? It's not like there was a proper precedent for this.

A thumb traced the too obvious line of Sam's ribs, and Lucifer shifted comfortably against the mattress. Curling for just a moment, close enough that his breath tickled hot against Sam's scalp. "You've started smelling like you again… at least how I remember you smelling last summer."

Sam wanted to laugh at such a ridiculous statement- because who else would he smell like? All he managed to do though was to stifle a soft whimper noise that he felt rioting in his gut.

"Almost back to yourself it seems," Lucifer kept on talking, lazy slow words to match the lazy slow drift of his fingers. "Maybe once we've got a few more meals into you, and one more good night's sleep, you'll be ready to get back to your life." Which would have been words of comfort- if only his hand wasn't still trailing chaos in seemingly accidental patterns.

Contless daydreams about being touched, and _actually_ being touched were two very different things, and Sam didn't know how to process any of it. He tried desperately to focus on the feel of the pillow case beneath his cheek instead of the feel of the other man's breath against the back of his neck. He tried to listen the the steady rhythm of the tide, and not to the frantic pounding of his own heart.

Closing his eyes tight against the morning sun, Sam started making fists in the sheets and digging his feet into the mattress, as he fought to keep himself from arching into the light touch that brushed against the waistband of his sweats before retreating higher once more.

Lucifer kept talking. He seemed to like hearing himself speak- which was good, since he was the only one listening. Sam's thoughts were too wild and confused to let him make much sense of what was being said to him. Snippets of daydreams screaming back unbidden into the front of his mind. This man spooning him had done some fairly elicit things in Sam's imagination, and he was struggling like hell to remind himself that it was _only_ in his imagination that these things had taken place.

Conversations that had never actually taken place came back like recent memories. Sam playing some of his favorite parts on repeat. His sleep muddled thoughts chasing themselves in unhelpful circles until he startled himself by accidently speaking one of them outloud.

"I'm still technically a virgin."

It was far too early in the day to make good choices.

A muffled, stilted sort of laugh came from behind him, "I'm not sure how to respond to that? Are you hoping for sympathy here, or congradulations?"

Sam wanted neither. He wanted action. "Don't people sacrifice virgins to the devil?"

A soft _tsk_ and snort of a laugh was followed with, " _excuse you_? Would you like to try that again but with more sense behind it?"

"Well, I, uh… I owe you." Sam was stumbling over himself, sure that he was blushing hard enough that the neighbors must have noticed. Surprised that he still had enough blood that hadn't rushed southward, that he could even manage to blush properly. "If you wanted to… to take me... that could be an even exchange for saving me."

The slow petting stopped so very abruptly.

"I don't mind," Sam whispered, eyes closed so tight, because the devil's hand remained under his shirt, against his skin like a question.. "I'm… I'm a very willing sacrifice. A… an- an eager sacrifice."

The pause that followed went on for roughly half of an eternity. Long enough that Sam started considering how difficult it might be to simply crawl out of bed and out into the ocean.

"You know…" Lucifer finally broke the hush. "Virgin sacrifices are really more for dragons."

"... really?" The startling revelation that dragons might actually exist was not something that Sam was prepared to dwell on- but it still caught him off guard just the same. "I mean… _really_?"

"For years now, people have been getting me confused with dragons." Idly, Lucifer's fingers flexed, distracted as the petting resumed at a more sedate pace. "Now, dragons hoard virgins. Keep them like treasures and then eat them. But I don't have the teeth for that- so what the fuck do people think that I would want to do with a virgin?"

The unexpected saltiness of the words hummed against Sam's skin pulled a startled shiver from him. He lay there in silence, strung tighter than a guitar string, waiting for the next part, for an answer to the offer that he'd never thought that he would make.

But nothing came, and shaking, Sam was compelled to fill the silence. Whispering through an answer to Lucifer's obviously rhetorical question. Being infinitely braver than he ever thought that he would be when faced with something so infinitely more terrifying than the usual monsters he dealt with. "Anything. You can do anything that you want to me. My answer is going to be 'yes' and 'please'."

Lucifer sat up behind Sam suddenly, pulling his hand away, and the loss thereof was great. "Oh, we're back on _this_ again? I thought we agreed last night that we were pretending you weren't all kinds of hot for me."

Death grip still on the bed, because he feared what his hands might do if suddenly unoccupied, Sam cast a pleading look over his shoulder. From where he lay, the devil loomed over him, rumpled from laying in bed for so long. His hair pressed messily up on one side and his pale eyes curious and amused.

"You know, as much as I would love to say that, as the harbinger of evil, I fear nothing- teenage boys are… you're absolutely terrifying." Was the devil's soft confession. "I've never have the first idea what to do with them."

"Same thing you do with virgins." Sam was many things, but terrifying was not one of them. Perhaps if he could convince the other man of that then...

Lucifer gave him a long, flat look. All those soft emotions so fleeting.

Something too close to shame mingled with Sam's overwhelming embarrassment at the whole situation that he'd thrown himself into. With normal people he was used to being a freak- but with other hunters, and when compared to things that went bump in the night, he typically fit in quite well.

He hadn't expected to get such a dry and judging look from such an historically imposing monster.

It came to Sam in the same kind of hurt that he would get when Dean said that he didn't trust him.- that Sam was still too young for something. He'd been dismissed with nothing more than a look of disinterest, and the familiarity of that feeling didn't make it any easier to choke down. "Is… is it because I'm a guy?"

"What?"

"I mean… you were an Angel before you became the devil, right?"

Those powder blue eyes blinked so slowly as humanity and humor bled back in. "Your leaps in logic are astoundingly hard to follow."

"Is it' because we're both men... and being gay is… it's wrong?"

"Who told you that?"

Sam did his best to loosen his grip on the bed sheets as it was starting to make his fingers cramp. "No one… _Everyone_. Everyone says it's wrong."

"Physically? Because those parts do in face slot together, just not in traditional ways. It's less wrong and really just more unexpected."

"No," Sam's face felt hot enough that it should have been on fire. "I mean like… in a… a _moral_ kind of way."

Lucifer sighed like this was an old fight that he'd grown tired of long before Sam ever got here. "People do a lot of speaking for God- and he does almost none for himself anymore. It's led to a lot of confusion and hearsay on the part of you humans."

Frowning, Sam wanted to argue. Just sort of as an impulse more than anything else. Habit.

Sighing again, this time with a slight shake of his head, Lucifer continued. "You people all need to read your Bible a bit better."

"Didn't you tell me last night that the Bible's mostly lies."

"When it comes to me? Yes. Every story needs a villain, and I was an easy scapegoat. Dad didn't bother correcting those errors from his sweet little Prophet's hands. But when it came to his own Word? It's pretty close to the original."

"I … I don't know what you're getting at."

"God said to love your neighbor. He said to treat one another with respect- which most humans completely suck at, by the way. But that's all he said to do."

It was hard switching gears between sex and theology. Sam frowned a little deeper, feeling it settle between his eyebrows. "What about the ten commandments?"

"Really? We're going to get into this?" Lucifer tucked his long legs up under him, his body language so at peace despite the aggressive angle of his mouth. "Those ten little laws all boil down to the same exact rule. Don't kill? Well, you won't do that if you're treating someone with love and respect. Lying, stealing, adultery? All in the same bubble. God doesn't give a good god damn, if you pardon the expression, for who you're touching, as long as it's done with respect and love. He didn't give you guys hard rules to follow, and he's pretty damn forgiving, considering how great you all are at fucking up."

News that would have been welcome if it weren't for Sam's inherent desire to argue simply for the sake of arguing.

"So… you don't care that I'm a guy?"

"I literally couldn't care less."

Over the past few months Sam had concocted some overly elaborate fantasies staring this man here, and what they would do if they were ever together again. And he knew it was all nonsense. All just pleasing stories to tell himself when he was feeling a bit needy. A bit lonely. He'd never expected them to amount to anything, and he'd definitely never expected to have to deal with the fact that Lucifer might just not be into him.

Sam needed a reason. He could live with the answer being 'no', but only if he got to know why. "Is it because… because I'm human?"

The devil laughed, just a startled, sharp sound. "Oh, Sam. No." So simple. He didn't need to elaborate, but the man still liked to hear himself talk, far, far too much. "Humans are very rarely ever on my menu- but if I stuck strictly to my own species it would, first off be incredibly insestuous, seeing as they are all my brothers and sisters. And secondly, they all sort of hate me for the whole 'war in Heaven' thing that happened a few millennium ago. Not to mention that they all think I'm still locked up in the deepest pit of hell since they kicked me out and changed the locks, so it would be kind of awkward for me to just step up on one of them and ask if they were interested in a quick one."

Sam lay there, in the devil's bed, looking up at the only man that he'd ever wanted, and after a bit of internal agonizing, he only had one question, "if I'm as beautiful as a summer storm, and you've been creeping on me for months, then… then why don't you want to touch me like I want to touch you?"

Lucifer sighed, leaning back on the heels of his hands, and there was some odd comfort to be had in the fact that, despite his being fairly the opposite of a human, there were obviously some basic human traits in this creature. He looked over Sam, eyes like a clouded sky, taking in that lanky and uncertain boy curled up in his bed. "You shouldn't make assumptions about people. Especially not someone like me."

It was almost impossible not to make assumptions. Even just a few small ones. This was the devil they were talking about, after all. Even if he didn't live up to any of the hype.

With the last threads of courage that Sam still had, he turned his body a little towards the man beside him, biting his lip in a way that was shurely more terrified than seductive.

"Now feels like the perfect time to bring up that tired line of 'don't tempt the devil', but you don't strike me as the sort of kid that would put much weight into that sort of good advice." A flicker of a smile caught the edge of Lucifer's mouth. A cooked and terrible thing that made promises Sam wasn't old enough to understand. "I would ruin you for every poor son of a bitch who came after me."

" _... w-what?_ " It was Sam's turn to ask simple and stupid questions.

"You're young. You're a self proclaimed virgin. You hardly even know what peg goes in what hole yet- and if I had my way with you, if it was my job to teach you all those beautiful lustful indiscretions that you've been warned against, then everyone who came after me would just be a disappointment."

A more beautiful threat had never been passed Sam's way before then. "You… you think an awful lot about yourself. Don't you?"

"Every Angel who ever rebelled their way out of Heaven had their own quiet sin to blame for their fall. Now, I'm not saying that mine was pride, but I'm also not saying that it _wasn't_."

It was probably a pretty bad thing that Sam had such a harsh crush on the actual devil.

It was probably a worse thing that he wasn't all that bothered by the previous fact.

"You've already ruined everyone else for me." Sam laughed, and it came out strained at best. "Why stop now?"

"Because horney teenagers will be the death of me." Lucifer swung his legs off the bed and stood. "Go find yourself breakfast. Maybe go out and enjoy the sun. I'll be back later today."

"Where are you going?"

"...to work."

"But, you're the devil."

"We have established that, yes. I don't see how that keeps me from having a job."

"Right… I just… it's hard to imagine you in a suit, at a desk."

A crooked line of a smile showed the edge of his teeth. "It's not really that sort of work."

"Answering summoning calls and collecting IOUs from other idiots like me?"

"Much more like that sort of work."

At least Sam wasn't the only sucker to get himself indebted to the devil.

"And then what happens?" Sam carefully sat up, pulling sheets into his lap to try and hide the way that his body still hadn't quite calmed down yet. "When you get back from collecting souls and IOUs?"

"Not whatever you're hoping is going to happen." Lucifer's face was carefully neutral, so much so that it was obvious that he was holding something back.

"You… you don't know what I'm hoping is going to happen."

Lucifer raised one sarcastic eyebrow. Knowing. Knowing everything. And then he was gone. There standing beside the bed one moment, and simply not the next.

So Sam was left alone, for an undetermined amount of time, in this paradise of a summer home. Where as the first order of business _should_ have been breakfast- the quest for food had to wait while Sam pressed his face into the bed's second pillow, and pressed a hand down the front of his sweats. The scent of the other man was still sharp and warm, the memory of his touch still so very fresh in Sam's mind.

Once that victimless sin was taken care of, and Sam got a quick rinse off in the tub, he found himself bowl of cereal much like the one that he'd had the night before. He ate outside, sitting in the sun and sand, with his legs crossed under him. Considering how everything had looked for him as of yesterday, hungry, cold, broke, and nowhere near where he'd wanted to go- things were suddenly looking up. Part of him wanted to just turn away from Stanford, to ask to stay here. A few yards few yards from the sea, with white sand between his toes. Where no one for hundreds of miles knew who he was, or that he was the son of a hunter, or what a freak he was, or any of the everythings that he wished that he could undo about himself. He could start a new life here-

only that thought was so unbelievably crazy that Sam moved away from it the second after he'd had it.

There was nothing for him here other than empty fantasies that would never lead to anything more for Sam than a breathless release and a lingering feeling of shame.

California needed to stay his goal. A new start. A new beginning where Sam could be anyone he wanted. He needed to keep the end goal in mind and not let himself get distracted by pretty ideals that would always be out of his reach.

But that didn't mean that he couldn't soak up some sun and enjoy having a full stomach for the first time in too long. School and a new start could wait for another day or two.

Before too long, the devil was back, (and god, but Sam wished that that was a euphemism, because there was never going to be a time that he would be ok with the fact that this man was supposedly the actual devil) silently sitting himself down in the sand beside Sam like he owned the whole beach. And maybe he did. There certainly hadn't been any other people out here for the few hours that Sam had sat and let himself get lost in his deep and complicated thoughts.

"I think you might have been out here a bit too long." Lucifer mused as his eyes trailed over Sam and then refocused out on the waves. "You're getting a bit brown."

Despite that he'd made up his mind so firmly, Sam was quick to feel awkwardly flattered that the other man noticed such a small change. "I tan easily."

"You were like this when I first met you. Though you're a bit thinner and slightly less angry looking now." And if the devil didn't want Sam being sweet on him, then he was doing a poor job of coming off as anything other than charming.

Oh, and Sam was struggling. "When it's time for me to go back… can you put me down anywhere or does it have to be back where you got me from?"

"When I release you back into the wilds?" He made a soft noise like he was sucking on his own teeth. "Pretty much anywhere. Did you have somewhere special in mind?"

"I've got a dorm room reserved in my name out at Stanford, and-"

"Room 18C in Roble Hall."

Sam blinked and felt less flattered and more weirded out, like he'd been last night. It was probably a more healthy approach to this whole thing.

"A full ride scholarship, along with housing accommodations." Lucifer was smiling with something that looked eerily like pride. "I wasn't around when you got your SAT scores, but all that studying must have really paid off."

Sam wasn't used to complements, or whatever that was. "I-I needed to get out. Good grades seemed like the surest bet."

"Good grades and running away from home?"

"It worked, didn't it?"

Lucifer's shrug was nice and open ended. Neither agreeing or disagreeing.

"So…" Sam tried when the silence stretched a little too thin. "Can you put me back there?"

"Right now?"

"Just whenever," he wiggled his toes in the sand, digging down until he found the cooler layer that the sun hadn't scorched. "I'm not in a hurry or anything. But I'll need to be there by the fifteenth for freshman orientation."

Lucifer talked to the ocean instead of the boy beside him. Gaze fixed so steadily on the waves. "So until then you're all mine?"

"If you want me," Sam shouldn't sound so hopeful.

The breath Lucifer had been holding rattled out. "What I want from you, Samuel- the only thing I want from you right now- is for you to grow up well and strong into all those interesting promises that your body is making, and for you to be the best lawyer, or hunter, or King of Spain, or whatever it is that you'd like to be."

And the words 'interesting promises' didn't go unnoticed by Sam, but instead got tucked away for later contemplation. "You give weird motivational speeches."

"I don't have much practice."

Sam tried watching the water too. It seemed like the stoic and adult thing to be doing. "If I need you again, if I call for you, will you come back?"

"You already owe me one terrible favor, Sam. Are you sure you want to double it?"

"What's the worst you can do me?" Sam bit his lip to try and hide a smile. "I mean, no offence or anything, but you're really sort of underwhelming in the scary department."

"I'm going easy on you right now because I like you. But don't fool yourself into thinking that that's going to stop me from taking my pound of flesh when the times comes."

"Why is it that most of your threats sound kind of… sexy?"

"Because you're a teenager. Everything sounds sexy to you."

Embarrassment kissed Sam's cheeks, but he smiled all the same.

"If you need me, and you call, I'll come for you." Lucifer said in a defeated sort of way.

"...do you promise?"

"No,"

Honesty like that hurt like a punch in the stomach.

"But I'll try." He added on in a hushed voice.

"Thank you." Sam didn't know what else to say.

"Don't thank me for being willing to buy your soul off of you. This is me being the devil, not me doing you any favors." It sounded an awful lot like he was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince Sam.

"Thank you," he repeated himself more firmly. "It might not mean much to you, but I don't really have anyone else."

"You have your brother, and your uncle." The fact that Lucifer didn't mention John was very telling.

"And you." Sam finished off the list for the other man. Three people in the whole world. One that he had no way of getting a hold of. One too far away to help. And one that was supposedly the embodiment of all evil. Sam was really batting a thousand.

"You do realise, that by your reasoning, you've basically sold your soul to the devil in trade for a friend."

"Is that what you want from me?" Sam watched the tide coming in. The waves closer now than when he'd first sat down. "My soul?"

"You humans have really no idea what that means, do you?"

"A soul?" Slowly Sam shook his head. "Not really… no."

"It's… it's… it's not something that you should ever offer to me, Sam." Lucifer said after some small battle with himself. "I don't deserve it."

It was strange and unfamiliar to see the other man at a loss. To see uncertainty from him. And Sam couldn't figure out why something like this would have triggered such a response. "I don't understand."

"You don't need to. Just know that for my help, I already own you. Lock, stock, and barrel. You've offered me anything, _and_ your virginity on top of that. Don't put your soul on the table too. I might not be able to keep resisting."

Sam definitely, definitely didn't understand. Though, perhaps out of his hunter's inclination, he made a mental note to look up what a soul _really_ was the next time he found himself in a library. It sounded like such a simple thing- but at the same time, it was just a casual word that was thrown around all the time. It didn't really mean anything to him.

"Luci… if I call you a few years from now, when I'm older and… and when I'm... older… will your answer still be no?"

"I'm sure that you just asked me something- but I'm caught up on the fact that you called me _Luci_."

Sam looked down at his filthy feet, where the sand stuck to his skin, and he waited for an actual answer.

One did not come immediately though. "Does this mean that I get to start calling you Sammy? I mean, if we're doing nicknames, I should get to play along too."

The devil was intentionally difficult, and that fact did not surprise Sam at all. He squared his shoulders and tried again, "you said it's not because I'm a guy, and it's not because I'm human." He wasn't willing to let go of those quiet fantasies quite yet. "So is it because I'm not old enough… right?"

"Honey- _Sammy_ \- I've been alive for a few millennium. At what point are you going to be old enough for that not to be weird?"

"So… yes then."

"What?"

"Your answer is going to stay no."

"My answer is going to stay the same as when I first met you- and that is that you are quite possibly the most dangerous member of your family."

Sam frowned and look over at the man beside him. "I don't know what that means…"

Despite the fact that he seemed to spend at least a portion of his time in the tropical sun, Lucier was rather pale. Something that Sam was forced to take note of considering that they were close enough for him to to little else.

One of those long fingered hands came up to touch Sam's cheek, holding him still with the barest of pressure. "It means that, given enough time, we are both going to regret ever meeting or striking a deal."

How was Sam supposed to let his little depraved fantasies die the quiet death that they deserved when the object of said fantasies kept touching him? "You think so?"

"Of course I think- yes. I _know_ so." Lucifer almost laughed. "Don't you?"

"Not yet."

.:.

Sam fell asleep that night in Tahiti. Waking up just as alone as he'd been when he'd laid down, only the sound of the ocean was notably gone. As his eyes adjusted, Sam saw more and more how wrong things suddenly were. The walls had been changed from simple white to beige, and there was a desk and a closet on the far wall- and no devil to be seen anywhere.

He didn't understand how, or when, or why exactly he was deposited in the safety of his sleep all the way out to Stanford. But there he was all the same. And before he could really get a handle on it, his twenty four hours with the devil seemed just another weird sort of dream that he could push aside while he focused on more important things like school.

All too soon it grew weird to think that he'd ever been a hunter. It was so much easier to be a pre-law student.

It was much simpler.

There were no guns, no ghosts, no salt on the windowsills at night, no deals with the devil. Just textbooks, lectures, tests, and a cute girlfriend named Jess.

For the first time in his life Sam didn't feel like a freak.

He felt normal for weeks. For months. For years. He got to just be Sam. A nobody who got very good grades and didn't have to worry about anything more dangerous than a pop quiz.

But then Dean showed up, telling him that Dad had left on a hunting trip and hadn't been back for a few days.

And all that nice normalcy was gone.


	7. Chapter 7

If weather was always able to foreshadow the start to the stranger chapters of Sam's life, then perhaps he'd have been a bit more suspicious of the rain storm. Though up here in northern Washington there was not a single day out of the year that heavy rain would have been considered out of the ordinary, so perhaps it wouldn't have made Sam worry as much as he should have been.

Rain fell, just like it had been falling in a bleak kind of drizzle for the last three days. A living kind of white noise to go along with the green, damp scent in the air. Trees, and dark earth, and growing things, scents that were sunk deep into the pine walls of the motel-cabin-thing that the brothers were staying in. It felt like camping but with a proper roof over their heads, and beds, and a shower, and all those nice amenities that they wouldn't have had if they'd hopped back in the car and got back on the road. The wind outside kicked up from time to time, sending sheets of water crashing over the cabin's windows.

Sam passed a tired hand over his eyes. The blue glow from his laptop burning worse now that they'd passed the midnight hour. He should go to sleep, but he and his brother were both still keyed up from nest of vampires that they'd cleared out before lunch. Dean dealt with the post hunt adrenaline high by drinking malt whiskey. Sam handled it in quite the opposite sort of way, by looking for their next destination.

There was always something going on somewhere that seemed like it could be their sort of thing. Something going on that the brothers could look into as they wasted time while waiting to hear some kind of word back from their dad. Their dad who never answered his phone. Who was off hunting the same demon that he'd been hunting their whole lives.

Nothing really ever seemed to change.

Not for very long, at least.

He'd spent years trying to build a new life- only to find himself head first back into hunting like he'd never even left.

The world seemed to have it's own special way of keeping a certain kind of equilibrium.

Nothing good could last and everything was strange and terrible. Or maybe that was just the worn down and sleepless feeling that always seemed to come to Sam with a certain level of melancholy after each hunt.

The laptop was closed with a sound of finality. Putting to sleep the websites he'd been browsing and cutting off his itunes app, leaving the motel room in a resonating kind of quiet. "I'm calling it quits for tonight."

Dean's slightly glassy eyes drifted open, amusement mixed in there with the tired and the liquor. "Hey, I was listening to the music, lame-o."

"Lame-o? Really? Well, it takes one to know one."

Lip curling in a sneer, Dean finished off the last of his bottle, never even once offering to share with Sam. "Where we headed to next, Sammy?"

"Don't know yet," he looked up at the ceiling, thinking for almost too long before he asked, "… any word from Dad?"

Fumbling around on the little nightstand between beds, Dean held up his phone. "Nope."

"Well, then I guess I'll keep looking for a hunt in the morning. I'm just… I'm really tired."

"Fucking vampires, right?" Dean dropped his phone down with a clatter and let his arm fall over his eyes. "I thought that going during the day they'd all be asleep and we could just pop the sons of bitches. Bang, bang, bang. But that blonde son of a bitch nearly broke my arm."

" _Bang_? Didn't know decapitations sounded like guns."

"Oh, shut up, smart ass."

"Maybe I was doing it wrong? Maybe you want to go over the finer points of vampires with me?"

"Fuck you. Man." But Dean was laughing in that soft, loose way that he did when he'd had too much to drink. He was apparently in a good mood despite his split lip and all the exciting bruising he had going on.

Just looking at his brother made Sam wince in sympathy. Quietly taking catalog of his own injuries that weren't too terrible but still promised that he'd be sore and aching for the next few days at best.

"You should get some sleep too,"

"I'll be there soon enough." Dean held his hand out with a strange bit of expectation in the movement.

"I'm not letting you watch porn on my laptop." Sam curled protectively around it, because he'd only just recently got the damn thing clean after the last virus that Dean had been nice enough to download.

With a look of mild annoyance, his big brother sighed. "Give me the remote for the TV."

"I'm also not going to be able to sleep over here with you watching _Casa Erotica_."

"Dude. I'm too tired for porn. Give me some credit." He wiggled his fingers where he'd stretched them out between the two beds. "I just want to see what's on HBO."

Sam didn't trust that, but still he passed over the remote, knowing that Dean would just whine at him until he got his way, so it was easier to just give in.

Apparently _Die Hard_ was on, and it was oddly something that they both could agree too. There was probably something to be said about the fact that Sam was able to start drifting off to sleep between the sound of rain outside and gunfire from the TV.

He'd practically fallen asleep, eyes mostly closed and his breath evening out in slow, soft rumbles when very suddenly a creeping feeling built along the back of his neck. Itching like there was a bug crawling along his skin- like there was someone watching him. Opening one eye, he was surprised to see that Dean was still wholly focused on the movie that was playing on a low volume.

Sam almost shrugged the feeling off, but ingrained instinct wouldn't let him. He sat up on his elbows, glancing towards the door to the outside, and the soft white curtains that hid the wooded trail outside from view- half expecting to see the shadowy outline of someone on the porch.

What he didn't expect was to see someone _inside_. A third person in the room where no third person had been invited.

His spine stiffened and his mouth went dry.

Standing as casual and innocent beside the window that he could have been a lamp, was Lucifer. Looking how he always did, clean, slightly rumpled, and underdressed for any situation.

How long the devil had been creeping over there was really anyone's guess. Sam had been face down in his computer for over an hour and Dean had been face first into his bottle of whiskey for nearly twice that. The movie must have been going for at least half an hour now.

"W-what the hell are you doing-"

"He can't see me, Sam" Lucifer crooked a funny little smile, nodding towards where Dean was slumped so comfortably.

True enough, Dean had glanced up from his movie to shoot Sam a questioning look. "I'm watching Bruce Willis kicking ass and taking names- and if maybe you pulled those bunched up panties from your ass for a few minutes you could enjoy it with me."

Frowning between his brother and the devil who had managed to just sneak his way in, Sam felt a fine line of irritation start to form between his eyes.

"Go ahead," Lucifer encouraged in a way that bordered a little too much on a taunt. "Ask him if there's anyone else here. He won't look at you like you're crazy or anything."

Sam rubbed his eyes again, knowing that he'd be able to better figure out what he should be doing if he weren't so damn tired. "I… I'm not… _why_?"

Dean blinked owlishly, liquor and exhaustion slowing any kind of proper response to the question he didn't know wasn't angled at him.

Lucifer showed a flash of teeth in what might have passed for a grin. "I'm… let's call it 'astral projecting', if that makes you feel any better."

"It doesn't, no." Frustrated, Sam sat up a bit more, not really sure how to handle this.

"You want to go talk in the other room, sweetie?" Lucifer nodded towards the bathroom door.

Which was a really nice offer that Sam should have taken, instead he ground his teeth and said with no room for compromise, "don't ever call me sweetie."

A snort of a laugh caught at Dean, his shoulders shaking just a bit. "I've never fucking called you _sweetie_ in your life. Go to bed Sammy, you're a mess."

"I'm… I'm going to go take a shower."

"Yeah, ok, Chief." Dean rolled his eyes and went back to the tail end of his movie, never once showing even the slightest bit of interest of acknowledgement for the leggy blonde that crossed his field of vision to follow Sam back behind closed doors.

As soon as the lock on the door clicked behind them, Sam was leaning heavily against the wall, doing his best to seem casual and annoyed- and not at all weirdly thrilled to see this man again after nearly four years.

Lucifer on the other hand wore the same easy expression and carelessly open body language as he'd had since the first night they'd met. And for someone who was supposedly not really there, he sort of smelled kind of nice. A little like smoke, and a lot like night time things. The soft scent of him only too noticeable with how close they were standing to one another.

Though it took a lot of effort, Sam thought he did a fairly believable job at sounding annoyed with the situation. "Why, and how, and more importantly _why_?"

Lucifer's smile was like a kid at Christmas. "Oh, you're in a mood tonight. Aren't you?"

"What-do-you-want?" Not to be rude, but Sam had a very pressing need for an answer.

"No hello, how've you been, I missed you?" The devil teased him like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like he'd never stopped from last time they'd seen each other.

"Luci... why are you invisible and in my motel room?"

"Well, if you're not going to be polite about it, I can just cut to the chase." Lucifer crossed his arms over his chest, standing a little closer than the confines of the bathroom technically required. "But for the record, I'd like to start with a hello. And ask how've you been. And point out that I missed you. And make note of the fact that you've gotten unreasonably tall and broad shouldered since I saw you last. You wear it very well."

Sam bit down on a smile, refusing to play along. Because this man was still the devil, and the situation was still sort of unprecedented. No one had summoned the King of Hell to this remote corner of Washington. Neither him or his brother were in need of an unspeakable favor. And Sam was tired, physically and mentally- but not stupid. " _What_ do you want?"

"I came to collect on that favor you owe me." Lucifer said so simply, though the smile he still wore made the words sound so much worse.

"Oh… ok?" Reluctantly Sam eased off the wall, sitting down on the edge of the bathtub. "What can I do for you?"

"I need a body."

Which, oddly enough, wasn't the first time that someone had made this request of Sam. "There's, uh, a cemetery a few miles from here… I've got a shovel in the trunk of the car and-"

"A live body," that smile of his hadn't become any more easy to accept. " _Your_ body, Sammy."

An offer that was coming about five years too late. Younger Sam would have been rather flustered at such a demand, but now? "I'm'a going to have to pass on that one, _Luci._ "

"Sweet boy, I saved your life." Somehow that smile of his had turned more predatory. "You owe me so very much."

Something a little too frantic curled in Sam's stomach and he realised that maybe even after all this time he hadn't quite worked the whole mess out of his system. God, but he'd been sure that he'd gotten over this man forever ago. He was in over his head in so many more ways than he'd anticipated.

"And you offered me _anything,_ If I'm remembering right- and I always remember things right." The devil hadn't moved from his spot beside the door. Comfortably blocking the only exit from the room. "So a 'yes' from you would be rather nice to hear."

The vampires that he and his brother had killed a few hours back had been a rough hunt. Not complicated, but the planning and the timing of figuring out the whole vampire family had been less than easy. And the getting slammed around by creatures considerably stronger than him had left marks. Sam really wanted to just stretch out in bed beneath a heavy quilt, listening to the steady thrum of rain mixed with noises from the television.

He wasn't so exhausted that he didn't hear what was being said to him though. Lucifer was asking for Sam to give him a yes.

Asking and not telling.

Asking because he needed permission.

Because Angels needed permission.

Sam wasn't sure if he should be more grateful or nervous.

"Why, um… why do you need a body?" It was easier to ask questions and stall until his mind cleared a bit more- because if Sam was being given a choice then his answer was definitely no. And he wasn't sure how telling the devil 'no' would play out exactly. Someone who had only ever treated Sam gingerly was still the embodiment of all evil and those stories probably had to have some basis in reality somewhere.

Lucifer was watching him so steadily, his smile fading into a quiet and rather blank expression that left his eyes looking flat. "Because my last body gave out."

"It looks fine from where I'm sitting."

"That's sweet of you to say, Sam. But this here," he nodded down at himself with a negligible flick of one hand. "This is all in that pretty little head of yours."

"I think I would know if I was imagining you." After all, Sam had spent many hours in his mid-teens devoted to imaging this man- but hardly more than a stray thought had been spared for Lucifer and their deal for years.

"I'm here in the only way that I can be right now. Which isn't the most tangible of ways." Came the loose explanation. "But it's the best that I can do- all things considered."

Sam glanced at the bathroom door, wondering if Dean could hear the whispered one sided conversation over his movie. Wondered if Dean had noticed that the shower still hadn't turned on.

"Now... about that favor,"

"Look, I know that I owe you, but-"

"I saved your life."

"You...yeah, ok. You _did-_ but," Sam never thought that he'd have to point out something so obvious, "I'm sort of still using my body right now." And he had seen what a demon could do to its human host. A very bad plane ride with Dean a few weeks back had given him an uncomfortably close look at what he could expect if he said yes to this man- and it was a hard sell.

"That's... very selfish of you, Sam. And more importantly, we had a deal."

"It was a favor for a favor and I'm happy to help you with something, like you helped me. But you can't… you can't ask for my body. That's not… that's not even close to fair."

Lucifer just stood there, arms still folded, looking for all the world like he didn't care about silly little things like 'fairness'.

Taking a deep breath, Sam stood his ground. "No."

Under all the sleepy, and ignoring the weird and subtle feelings that he'd sort of forgotten about, he was still stubborn. So unshakably stubborn.

Lucifer was too though. "You're not allowed to tell me no."

"If I wasn't allowed to decide yes or no, then you would have just gone ahead and taken me already." The porcelain of the tub was cold beneath Sam. He could feel the chill along the backs of his legs. It was a nice and solid thing to focus on instead of the incredibly uneasy feeling that was churning in his stomach.

"You don't sound so positive there, Sammy."

"I've never been more positive about anything."

Seemingly tired of playing it cool, Lucifer paced.

There really wasn't enough room to be pacing.

He brushed past- and for someone who supposedly wasn't actually there the devil sure felt solid when he lightly kicked one of Sam's bare and unprotected foot.

"I saved your life," he reminded rather needlessly. "I'm only asking for it back. I need a body, Sam. And yours is the one I plan to be wearing home."

Sam looked down at his own hands where he was struggling to keep them still on his lap, not at all ready to be beaten over the head by a conversation of this weight. They'd had a deal though. Sam had offered 'anything' and this sort of kind of fell into that category.

He couldn't believe that he was even entertaining the idea but… "How… um... how long would you need it for?"

Light caught in those winter pale eyes, a quiet thrill. "Mmmm, a good body lasts me five to twenty years or so? But your's? Possibly a few hundred if I'm gentle with you- oh, and I would be so gentle with you, Sam."

He wasn't a kid anymore. The fact that all the fluttering embarrassment that he suddenly felt didn't color his cheeks or leave him stuttering was testament to how much he'd grown since last time they'd seen one another.

And Sam had been willing to try and help, if only for as long as it took him to make his very slight offer- but _helping_ and what Lucifer was asking of him were two very different things.

"Look, I'm not saying that I don't appreciate you spontaneously appearing, I sort of almost missed you- but I'm not going to let you posses me for the next fifty years." He'd probably said stranger things at some point in his life, but honestly right now he couldn't recall any of them. "I'm hunting with Dean. We're trying to help out our dad. And when that's figured out I need to get back to school… I'm sort of… I'm really busy."

"Oh. You're _busy_." Lucifer took a knee, crouching down in front of Sam and putting their faces far too close together. "I see. Sure was nice of me to not be too busy for you when you summoned me to the snow all those years ago."

"This is not the same kind of thing and you know it."

"You said I could have anything. What did you think I was going to ask you for, sweet boy?"

"I don't know! Just something else. Something that didn't involve you wearing me like a prom dress for the rest of my life, maybe."

The devil's hands slid over Sam's knees, oddly very real feeling. "I need a body, Sam."

"I'll help you find one."

" _One_ won't do." His thumbs notched into the soft spot behind Sam's knees. "I'm not a demon. I can't just take any port in a storm. It's got to be special. A very specific type of person."

"I'm not that kind of special."

"You don't know what you are."

"I'm not any kind of special." Sam was rather certain.

"There are so few people that an Angel can inhabit." He leaned his surprising weight into Sam's legs, looking up at him with such earnest. With something close to pleading. "I've got things I need to be doing that require flesh and bone. A suitable vessel isn't an easy thing to find. Most people wouldn't last more than a few days before my grace would burn them up. It's got to be you, Sam. You're special. You'd fit me perfectly."

"You're doing just fine without a body, as far as I can tell." Despite how very certain Sam was, he found it difficult to stay wholly focused on the problem here when he was being so thoroughly crowded. "Also, there's about seven billion people in the world. I can't be the only match. Luci, I'll help you find someone else, if you need me to- or not. But that's my offer. I've got too much to do to run away with you. And I sort of don't want to be dead, and your offer sounds a hell of a lot like me not technically being alive and _me_ anymore."

The devil gave no quarter and no breathing room. Just looking at Sam from too close. Watching as all sort of strange and unnamable thoughts simmered behind his pale eyes. "I could let you be the captain now and then. Let you steer sometimes. I don't mind going to fancy school with you and learning to be a lawyer."

The offer was as confusing as anything. "I- I can't do a timeshare with my body. I _won't."_

"I could help you."

"I'm not going to cheat on my tests with your help- no offence, but you seem like you'd be really shitty at school."

"On your hunting." Lucifer easd, so persistent.

"We don't really need any help though."

The edge of his tongue toyed with an incisor, a lopsided sort of smile as if very suddenly the devil had a fantastic idea. "What about you dad?"

To which Sam didn't have any kind of response.

"What is ol' John out hunting right now?" He asked like he already knew but was really looking forward to what Sam might say.

"I- I don't know. We haven't heard from him in a few weeks."

"Really? He's such a predictable creature of habit. Last I heard it was a yellow eyed demon. I'd bet you that that hasn't changed."

Sam had been hunting his whole life. It had helped to sharpen his senses. It made it so that he could see the trap he was stepping into so clearly. It was so obvious.

"The same demon that killed Mary, right?"

Wincing like he'd been struck, Sam found that he didn't have any good words.

The devil waited, hands flexing so slightly against Sam's knees like talons adjusting their grip. Anticipation clear on his face.

"Luci… _Lucifer_... do you…" he almost didn't want to know though. It hurt to even say the words, "do you know the demon who killed my mom?"

A half a nod and most of a shrug was his only answer as he crouched there beside Sam's feet, hands molded to his knees, smile so carefully guarded and hardly restrained.

"Really?" Even though he'd asked it, and the answer had seemed obvious, it still surprised him. Why wouldn't the devil know all about all his demons and all the terrible things they get up to? More importantly though, "why- why didn't you bring it up before?"

"You didn't ask me before."

"A man shouldn't have to come right out and ask someone if they know who killed their mom. That's the sort of information that you just volunteer if you have it."

Lucifer's eyes crinkled on the edges, amusement underneath everything else. "Well, naturally. And if when you dearest Papa first called out to me and I'd said, 'oh, you're _The_ John Winchester? The demon who burnt your wife alive works for me'- how do you think things would have played out, Sam?"

Sam had stories about Mary. Just stories that Dean used to tell when they were kids, that he couldn't seem to bring himself to retell anymore. There had been an old family photo. Creased and faded. Tucked into the bottom of Dean's duffle- though there was no telling if he even still had it. But Sam had nothing tangible for himself. He had no memories of the woman who'd given him life. Even still… something inside of him flared with anger at Lucifer's words.

"Did you-"

"Don't be stupid, Sam." His lip curled in mild disgust. "I had nothing to do with it, or any of the other families that he upset. As far as the armies of the damned are concerned I'm still shackled up in the lowest depths of hell, and no one has spoken to me directly in millennia. We both know that John wouldn't have bought it though. He would have tried to skin me alive to get out any information that I had- and I would have had to have killed him, leaving his two beautiful boys orphans."

That sharp anger in Sam eased a little, but whatever trust he had in the Devil had been wounded. "But, but you do know who… you know who killed my mom?"

"I may be more or less retired until something interesting enough comes along for me to get off my ass- I hear things though. I know most of what my children have been getting up to since I got locked away. I know about your mother, all the mothers and the deals that they made, thought the _why_ part still has me confused. I know about your lovely girlfriend Jess and what he did to her, though I have to say that including her in this whole mess was cruel and unnecessary."

There was very probably something that Sam was supposed to be saying in response. Some socially agreed on way to react when someone offers to help you find closure on the worst things that has ever happened to you.

All he could do was to sit and stare.

Lucifer seemed to have a handle on it though, to be fair he'd been the one to upset everything in the first place. He let go of Sam's knees and let his weight fall against the younger man. His long fingered hands coming up to cradle Sam's face. The devil's imaginary skin so cold against the rough hollows of his cheeks.

"Let me call in my favor, Sam." He sounded exactly like you'd imagine that the devil would sound when trying to talk a helpless young man out of his body. "I'll throw in the demon who killed your mom for free. I just need to hear a yes from those beautiful lips of yours."

It was quite an offer.

Sam knew just what to say.

"N-no."

"No?"

"We'll find him ourselves." Because in the end this little trade would still end with Sam more or less dead.

"Your daddy's been looking for twenty years and hasn't gotten any closer, dragged you and your brother through all kinds of hell, and I'm offering you the head of the demon who started this."

"I'm not willing to die just so my dad can sleep at night. It's his hunt. Not mine."

"She was your mother."

"I-I know that." And Sam felt terrible for even thinking the words, much less saying them outloud, "but I never knew her. You're barking up the wrong Winchester."

Lucifer's eyes narrowed. "She was your girlfriend."

Sam's hands clenched into tight fists and he resisted the urge to throw a punch or to change his answer- "I'll help you find someone else," he swallowed hard, no longer even remotely sure how to feel about the hands that were holding his face so still. "Someone who would actually be into being possessed by the devil himself. But I won't do it. I'm… I'm sorry."

With an echoing sort of silence, Sam found himself suddenly very alone.

He should have felt relieved- but he was familiar with relief and this was about as far from it as he could get.

Dean was mostly asleep on his bed when Sam timidly came out of the bathroom. The television still running, but the volume soft enough that most of the words and gun fire were drown out under the steady patter of rain. Still fully dressed, just like his brother, Sam folded himself into the unoccupied bed. Sleep felt less like an option though. The devil's offer still rather aggressively at the forefront of his mind.

He was almost certain that he'd made the right and only choice that there was to make- but possible retribution for him backing out of their deal was likely to be more than he was able to cope with.

This felt like something that he should probably talk to Dean about. Something that probably would be best dealt with now and not in the morning.

Wrestling with the best way to wake Dean and breach the subject of the devil wanting to steal his body, Sam found himself almost thankfully interrupted by the door to the outside world suddenly shaking. Not hard, just someone trying the handle. Followed by some aggressive knocking.

"Come on," the person outside sounded oddly like a woman.

Sam sat up. So did Dean. Only one of them had instinctively palmed his gun though.

"I don't have my key. It's freezing out here."

Dean mouthed ' _who_?', but all Sam could do was shrug.

"I'm getting soaked- open the damn door."

Either intrigued or insanely suspicious, Dean got to his feet, edging closer to the door, gun held loosely at his side. He unlocked the door and opened it just enough to peek out. "Sorry, sweetheart, I think you... got the wrong cabin..."

Sam couldn't see the porch from where he sat- but he could tell by the change in his brother's posture alone that apparently Dean liked what was out there. Dean was easy to read like that.

"Oh my god." If the girl's sudden change in tone was any indication, she didn't mind the view either. "I… I ran out to the parking lot to get my ipod. I must have gotten turned around coming back. I'm so sorry."

All cars got parked up at the main office. The cabins were spread out over two acres and separated by old trees and neatly kept dirt paths. It wasn't unimaginable that someone could get lost out there at night in the rain. But the idea still made Sam frown.

"Do you, um," the woman giggled softly and even Sam had to admit that it was a pleasing sound. "Do you have an umbrella I could borrow? I'll bring it back tomorrow."

"Come on in out of the rain." Dean actually held the door wider open in invitation. "Let me see what I can find." His gun was tucked into the waistband of his jeans against the line of his spine as he stepped aside.

Sam saw the charming smile on his brother's face before he saw the delicate creature who it had been put on for. She wasn't necessarily Sam's type, but she was one hundred percent Dean's. Which was to say she was wide eyed and in need of rescuing. Long dark hair, round sweet face, and a Metallica tshirt soaked through with enough rain that it hugged just about every curve she had.

"Hey, Sammy. Did you grab the umbrella on the way in earlier?" Dean asked in the most awkward way possible, but it was obvious that his attention was divided at the moment.

"No, I..." Sam got his feet on the floor, sitting on the edge of his bed and trying to remember how to be polite. "I think it's in the backseat of the Impala. Um… hi." Sam nodded to the young woman who was probably about his own age, who was blushing and looking between the two brothers like she'd won some kind of prize.

"Hi there. Sorry to wake you guys."

Sam shook his head- but Dean beat him to the punch line.

"We were still up. Don't even worry about it." He closed the door but didn't lock it. Such a marvelously unthreatening man when he wanted to be. "Sit on down. I'll grab you a towel while my brother goes and gets you that umbrella."

"Oh I couldn't." She shuffled her flip flop shod feet and folded her arms self consciously across her chest, looking cold and half drown. "I've already been more than enough trouble."

"You can't go back out in this storm." Dean was all smiles. "Not without a little protection from the elements."

Sam was apparently a different story though. Sam could go out and get all kinds of soaking wet- and it's not like he was about to send this tiny little gal back out, but he still wasn't happy about being volunteered for the task. Shoes and jacket were pulled on as he listened to edges of Dean's flirting.

"You must be freezing. Here."

The girl took the offered blanket, wrapping it around her shoulders and looking up at Dean like he was some kind of prince. "Thank you."

"Hey, happy to help." Dean was pulling a chair out for her and just eeking charm. "I'm Dean, by the way. Sammy'll be back in just a bit and I'll walk you back to your cabin. You want to use our phone, call whoever you're out here with? Let 'em know you're alright."

"Yeah. My friends probably think I was eaten by a bear or something by now."

Sam had every intention of running the whole way to the car and back, even knowing that Dean would probably enjoy all the alone time he could get with this girl. He got almost out the door before he heard just a slip of something that rooted his feet to the floor.

Dean all honey sweet asking, "I didn't catch your name,"

She answered in almost the same flirtatious tone that was being used on her. "You can call me Luci."

Any other night, any other time in his life, and Sam wouldn't have turned back to give her a second glance- but his earlier and incredibly uncomfortable conversation with the devil still had him a little on edge.

He hesitated with his hand on the door knob, half way onto the porch, with cold damp air blowing his hair around his face.

Eye contact was made between him and their guest, just for a moment, and Luci smiled a crooked smile at Sam. A very knowing, acknowledging sort of smile like the two of them shared a special little secret.

"No…" he shook his head, confused and too stunned to be angry. "How the hell did you-"

"Same way I do everything." Her smile turned to a grin. "Very carefully."

"Do… do you two know each other?" Dean was pretty fast on the uptake, one hand slipping behind his back, casually touching the gun he had hidden back there. The very quick return to normalcy was reassuring if nothing else. "...from school or something?"

"From something." Sam swore, closing the door, abandoning the idea of going outside. "Dean, you might not like to stand so close to… _her_."

And just like that, Dean put yards between himself and 'Luci'. "Yeah? You want to fill me in here, I feel like I'm missing something."

"Um…," Sam couldn't come up with a better way to say it, "that's the devil."

Dean snorted softly, misunderstanding. "Oh, an ex girlfriend, Sam?"

"No. I mean the actual devil. As in Satan."

"Excuse me?"

"We've met before actually, a few years back," Lucifer smiled over at Dean, utterly fearless and still draped in his/her blanket. "You were a bit of an asshole to me that time around. I was hoping that you'd find this face a bit more agreeable- and you obviously did." She winked at Dean.

Dean did not take it well.


	8. Chapter 8

notes::

 _it is a lot of fun to play with these boys in such a different kind of setting than I usually use. It's the first time that I've written the devil as himself, and I'm enjoying it._

 _always thank you, thank you, for your support. Your sweet encouragements keep me going, especially considering I've been worried since I started it that this story might not be as well received as it's such a departure from my normal fluffy AU stories._

 _Writing fluff is therapeutic when things in RL are getting rough._

 _I'm not sure what it says when I'm in the mood to write things like this instead... but hey. It's the sort of stuff that I usually write when I'm not doing fanfics, so it's nice to let my two loves meet I guess._

* * *

"Hey now, hot stuff," Luci kept him(… her?)self tucked into the borrowed blanket, but the body language had changed. The cute and lopsided little smile fading the moment that Dean pulled out his gun. "This body is on loan. I promised her that I just needed it for an hour or so to talk to a friend, and that no one would hurt her, and I wouldn't be hurting anyone else."

A small frown wormed its way over Dean like he just didn't have the first idea of how to handle this new and unexpected benchmark of weirdness.

"You want to put down the peashooter? You're making us a little nervous over here."

Sam took small comfort in this turn, though to be honest he hadn't expected any violence from the devil. Other than that hunt that he'd helped them with back when Sam was a gangly kid, there had never been even so much as a threatening twitch in any direction.

For whatever it was worth, Dean hadn't raised or pointed his gun, but it sure stayed out and as visible as an open threat. "One of you want to clarify the whole _Satan_ thing?"

"See now," the devil sat down on the edge of one of the beds with a squeak of springs, absently tucking some dark hair behind an ear. "Sam sort of jumped the gun- I like to introduce myself as an _Angel_. It's true, and it usually tends to keep people from pulling weapons on me."

Dean raised his chin, doing his best to look even more down on their guest, like the condescending son of a bitch that he could be sometimes. "I don't believe in Angels."

Luci laughed, the usual soft chuckle that Sam remembered so well coming out light and almost musical through this different throat. "Wow. And if your opinion actually had any bearing on my existence I'm sure I would at least pretend to care about your feelings on the more complicated side of theology."

Trying to keep his brother calm and not defensive, Sam pointed out, "we ran into real demons only a few weeks back. Angels aren't that big of a jump for us."

"If the Devil does exists then this here would be way outside of our paygrade." Dean shook his head, sparing a glance towards Sam with something a little too close to accusation. "And what's she saying she came to talk to a 'friend'?"

Satan put on a face of mocking injury. "Because Sammy and I _are_ friends. Besties in fact. So close that we're practically the same person, isn't that right?"

"No. We're not." Sam resisted the urge to raise his voice, someone here needed to stay both calm and not antagonizing towards Dean. But the devil certainly was pushing both brother's buttons. "And weren't you just saying that you wouldn't be able to find a body? Because it sure looks like you didn't have any kind of trouble. It must have taken you all of what, five minutes to find someone else?"

"I'm only borrowing this one so I could come talk to you boys. It's very temporary." She turned her face from side to side, offering her cheeks to both hunters like she was showing off. "This tender young thing killed herself a few years back- then had some very strong regrets. I put her back together and sent her back to her family in exchange for a favor. And she keeps her promises, Sam. Unlike other people… but she's not a great fit for me. I don't have long before I've got to go put her back where I got her from, or risk doing some real damage."

Dean had this way of looking at someone that said in no uncertain terms that he was completely done with their bullshit. He used it now- but it probably didn't work as well as he was hoping.

"Oh, come on now, cowboy." Luci turned that crooked smile towards the hunter still holding a gun. "You should know from last time we met that I'm not going around looking for any trouble. I'm just-"

"When the hell did we meet?" Dean's tone made it clear that he felt like he'd remember meeting the devil.

"Out in Alabama." She answered so sweetly. "Years back when you were more pretty and less bitter. It was a hot and wet summer night, and your eyes were so bright and mistrustful in the darkness of your daddy's car." A bit of a southern drawl creeping in like she wanted to give as many hints as she could to the very suspicious man on the other side of the room.

"...no." But just like that, Dean pushed aside the explanation. "No. That was… that was the ghost of some backwater hunter who'd died back in the twenties."

"Mmm, agree to disagree."

"No. Sammy and him took care of that fucking big bird thing and then we hightailed it out of Alabama." Dean offered his version of how he remembered it all happening. "Dad check us in at a motel, and then he went back out and wasted the ghost, because we don't leave those kinds of loose ends. Helpful ghost or not- a monster is still a monster."

This came as some kind of news to Sam. He hazy memories of way back then only vaguely brought back that John had left immediately for some hunt. But for a moment Sam doubted. Doubted the small girl perched on the edge of his bed. Doubted who had come to talk to him earlier in the night, and who it was that had come to steal him away from the snow four years back-

"And if I didn't let your daddy think that he'd laid me to rest then he would have never let me get a minute's peace. John Winchester is a little hell bent on ridding the world of monsters- and unfortunately I sort of fall into that genus and species."

"It was a ghost."

"Really?" Luci raised one dark and arching eyebrow. "And what about that handsome gentleman and all that he said and did felt like a _ghost_ to you, Dean?"

Dean frowned.

"Because you're a capable hunter and that kind of half assed explanation must have never set quite right with you."

"To be honest I never gave you a second thought."

"Ouch." Lucifer winced, a surprising amount of sass compacted down into such a small feminine body. "Break a girl's heart why don't you?"

"You're not a girl." Sam let out a frustrated breath, getting very tired of whatever was going on here. "And I've already told you no to your insane request. Coming back with a new face isn't going to change my answer."

"Oh see, but I can taste the stubborn on you, Sam- and it's bitter like every other broken promise. But I can slip in and talk to you in that bomb shelter you call a brain any time I want to, because it's _mine_ , because you already gave it to me- even if you're trying to back out now. This sweet little face I've got on isn't for you, big boy. You and me don't need tangible things like this anymore."

Which… was a strange thing to say and sort of only gave one unexpected alternative for this second nightly visit.

"Well I sure as hell don't want to talk to you, _Satan_." Dean bristled, gun awkwardly still in his right hand. "So you can just pack up whatever crazy you're here peddling and get out."

Lucifer folded her arms, the blanket slipping from narrow shoulders. "Rude. And after I put on this cute little girl just for you."

Dean's eyes widened just a hint. "Do you have any idea how insanely creepy you sound?"

"Oh, he knows." Sam sighed and leaned a hip against the room's little desk, the fight quickly leaving him as the danger of the situation started to ebb. "He just doesn't care. I think he sort of enjoys it actually."

The devil nodded and grinned as if they were all sharing in some kind of joke. "That's aside from the point, honey. Like I said, I've got to make this quick."

"I don't want to hear it." Dean did his best to make himself clear. He was, after all, a man of very few words.

"I can give you the demon that killed your mother." Lucifer seemed to have an inherent knowledge when to play his hand though. Knew where to throw his punches to do the most damage.

From the stunned look that Dean wore it was obvious that the offer had its intended impact. "You can _what_ now?"

"The demon who killed Mary Winchester," the devil clarified in that sweet feminine voice. "I know his name and I know how to find him, and I'm more than willing to share what I know. A little bit ago I tried to give all this info to your brother, but he told me he wasn't interested."

And the look that Dean gave to Sam said more than any words that he could have put together. It was accusing. It was a little hurt. It was mad.

"I told him that we're handling it and that we didn't need help." Sam tried to explain his way out of that accusatory glare.

"Any help we can get, Sammy. _Any_ help." Dean clearly wasn't getting the whole picture though.

"He wanted to trade the info for _me_." Which wasn't just _a_ point that Sam was trying to make but it was _the_ point.

"Borrow." Lucifer pointed out. "I just asked to borrow your body."

"For, what was it, a hundred years or so?" Sam couldn't believe that he was having to go over this again. "It's not going to happen."

"Which is why I came here to have a nice little talk with the more reasonable brother."

And Dean could be called many things, but reasonable was not one of them. "Yeah, you're not borrowing my body either, buddy."

"Don't flatter yourself. I'm not here to ask you for that, _mmm_ , rather nicely built body that you're filling out so very nicely, Dean." The small woman rolled her eyes. "Look at you. We're hardly a match made in heaven. I need more room to stretch out. I need someone taller. Someone more refined and less rough around every one of his edges. Someone… _hmmm_ a bit more morally gray like myself. What I need from you is for you to talk some sense into your thick headed brother. Who by the way, owes me his life for that time I saved him and he promised me _anything_ I wanted in return. He agreed to my terms. It's a binding contract."

"I didn't sign anything." Sam didn't hesitate to point out.

"We didn't kiss on it like a usual crossroads deal with the devil. We didn't even pinky promise." Lucifer leveled Sam with such a look of disapproval. "It was a verbal agreement though, and if I had known that you had no intention of keeping it I would have left your skinny ass where I found it. But I'm here giving you a chance to be an honest, promise keeping, upstanding citizen. I'm even throwing in a bonus revenge killing to sweeten the deal, which I don't _have_ to do, but I'm a tender hearted kind of guy who wants to help his friend out."

The room got kind of quiet. All those very clear words hanging heavy in the air as the rain kept falling outside.

Dean broke first, but he'd never had all that much patience. "Sam, you made a deal with the actual devil?"

And when it was said like that it was kind of easy to see where Sam had screwed up. "It… it was when I'd left for school. I was stuck out in the middle of nowhere, at night, in the snow. I thought I was going to freeze to death."

"Sam, you could charm your way across the United States with nothing more than your dimples and a pocket knife. You didn't need to sell your soul to the devil."

"It wasn't… it wasn't my _soul_." Sam sighed, head falling back for a moment as his hair tickled his neck and reminded him that it was long past a time for a trim. "I was lost, I was cold, I was hungry, and I didn't see another way out."

"And you didn't think to tell me about any of this?"

"There wasn't anything to tell." He hated to be put on trial like this. When the actual devil was sharing a room with them it hardly seemed fair to treat Sam like he was the criminal. "Once upon a time I didn't die in the snow. End of story."

"You made a deal with the real Satan." Dean lectured like he'd caught Sam stealing candy from a convenience store. "An open ended deal with the devil and you didn't think that was something I needed to know about?"

"I didn't think he was going to call in the favor."

"Oh come on, Sam." Dean apparently felt very strongly about this particular bad choice that had been made so very long ago. "You're not that stupid."

"Asking for help is never stupid." The devil said in that soft voice that he'd stolen. "But refusing to pay the price afterwards is downright suicidal."

"Is that a _threat_?" Dean turned so quickly, gun still in hand and all kinds of protectiveness coming over him like a storm cloud. "You come into my home and actually threaten my baby brother in front of me?"

"Ok. First off, it's a hotel. As depressing as you boy's lives are, it's still just a hotel, not a home. Second, I was simply making a point. A point on how it's important to keep our word, especially when it's a word that we make to eldritch beings. If he doesn't keep up his end of the bargain, I won't be able to keep up mine."

Sam startled himself with a laugh. "What are you going to do, put me back in the snow four years ago?"

But the devil just stared him down. With warm and gentle borrowed eyes, sitting on a bed that wasn't his, tucked up in a worn quilt with faded gingham colors that made those stolen cheeks look as fair and delicate as porcelain.

And the devil waited.

Waited until Sam got the creeping suspicion that perhaps that insane sort of suggestion that he'd chuckled out might actually be some kind of terrifying possibility.

"Can… can you do that?"

"What is time and reason to an archangel? I may have lost my way and my wings long before humans crawled out of their caves, but my need for a lawful balance in all things is as deep and as dark as the barrel of your brother's gun." The devil blinked and turned back to Dean, seemingly unshaken by the weapon leveled in his direction. "So, like I said, it's not a threat. I don't make threats. I'm just here to settle a promise made to me- and I'm offering you boys the demon that killed your mother as a consolation for the inconvenience. Really, I'm being very reasonable."

"You're not borrowing my brother's body." Dean said as if he had any authority here.

Before Sam could even stand up for himself, the devil was getting to his feet.

"I'll let you boys talk it over. You don't have to give me an answer tonight." The blue nail polish on his stolen toes clashing with the pink strap of the still rain damn flip flops. "I've got a yellow eyed demon to talk to, one who's been looking over his shoulder for a bourbon soaked hunter. I think it might be time to get those two crazy kids together."

Confusion swept over Sam, feeling like he'd had his legs kicked out from under him.

"Don't you agree?" But the devil didn't stay and wait for an answer. He simply left the same way that he usually did. There one moment and gone the next beneath the crashing sound of wings.

Dean looked long and hard at the suddenly vacated space. "Did she just…"

"Just threaten to try and kill Dad?" The words felt funny as they worked their way out of Sam. "Maybe. Or maybe he's going to go keep up his side of the offer because he thinks it will mean that I _have_ to keep up mine."

"This isn't really the time to speculate, Sammy. That was the devil- and apparently you promised it _anything_."

"I was dying."

"You were cold and you missed a few meals. So basically you were in the same place we'd been back when you were ten and we spent that month up Vermont while Dad hunted that forest spirit thing that was eating little kids on their way to school. A little cold isn't a death sentence, Sammy. You're stronger than that."

Which was as flattering as it was untrue. Sam looked down at his feet and took what were meant to be calming breaths. "Dean… I was running away from home for the last time. Dad had told me not to come back and you… you didn't say anything. You just stood there. I wasn't exactly feeling like a pillar of strength, ok?"

"So you called up the devil?"

"Can we please try and focus on more important things right now? Like the fact that the devil knows, not only where Dad is, but also where the yellow eyed demon is."

"Sam, you're my brother. There's not a damn thing in this fucked up world that I would trade you for." And the next words seemed like they cut away at Dean like knives, "that includes the demon that killed Mom."

"That's… that's really touching, Dean." And Sam didn't mean to sound so sarcastic, but this was his brother and if they couldn't give each other a hard time then what was the point of having each other at all? "But we need to consider the fact we've spent our whole lives looking for a demon that is suddenly only one little 'yes' away."

"You're not saying that you're suddenly considering saying yes to the devil?"

"Hell no." Sam laughed for the second time that night, just as surprised this time around. "I'm saying that he's already tried to rework the terms of our deal once. Maybe… maybe I can make a new deal with him. One that doesn't involve giving him my body- that still gives us the yellow eyed demon."

"And then Dad can what? Exorcise him so we can hunt the bastard all over again?" Dean thunked his gun heavily onto the nightstand between beds, settling himself down and hunching his shoulder up like he was cold. "If there's a way to kill a demon- none of us have come across it. What's the good of gettin' our hands on him if we can't do any more than just hurt the son of a bitch with holy water and salt?"

"You think the devil doesn't know how to kill a demon?"

Dean's eyebrows hitched, "you think he'd tell us if he did?"

The need for sleep had run from Sam's mind in the wake of this new and curious question. "Well… it's going to sound weird- and you're going to give me that look- but from the time I spent with Lucifer, he doesn't actually seem like a bad guy. He might be willing to help us out."

Oh, and Dean was giving that look of his like it was keeping him alive. "And just what exactly do you plan to offer your old pal Lucifer, if not the honor of wearing you like a ball gown?"

Sam didn't have a good answer for that.

Not yet at least.

.:.

The sky was still weeping the next night. A lonely sort of drizzle that felt like cold isolation. Dean was still bruised and restless. He wanted to get out of Washington, but he wasn't up for a few days of driving, nor was he over his baby brother communing with the devil- which roughly translated to Sam not being allowed to drive. So they'd paid for two more nights at the hotel, and the older of the two hunters had left to either hustle some pool or to find some pleasant company for the night. Though he'd made a rather big deal before he left that Sam was not to do anything stupid while he was alone and unsupervised.

Which was a little insulting, but Sam couldn't hold it against his brother. They all blew off steam in their own ways. Dean had his girls with low standards, and Sam had his laptop and news articles of the strange and unexplainable.

The only problem with their nightly plans was that, as established less than twenty-four hours before, Sam wasn't the best at keeping promises.

He went outside without an umbrella. The rules on what he planned to do were all kinds of vague and confusing. Especially considering that there was absolutely zero consistent lore on how to summon the devil. Zero lore, and seemingly thousands of internet pages devoted to all kinds of unbelievable nonsense that contradicted itself and had no proper basis in any kind of reality that Sam could piece together. The only thing that Sam was sure could work was a half remembered symbol that he'd traced in the snow after seeing it once drawn in chalk on the hood of the Impala.

Being outside and drawing a symbol that basically meant nothing were the only things that Sam could say for certain worked.

And even then he didn't know if the two things actually correlated with one another or if it all was nothing more than coincidence.

The trees that filled the space between the little cabins were old and had been left to grow their own ways probably long before some business minded person decided to build a motel out here. After walking for a few yards off the designated trail Sam almost completely lost sight of his and Dean's cabin. And there was some strange comfort to be found in that isolated feeling- because if he was going to do something this stupid, then at least there would be no witnesses to it.

There was no snow to scratch into this time, and the persistent rain made the idea of chalk out of the question. But Dean's old pocket knife fit comfortably into Sam's hand and curving, strange lines were cut into the thick bark of the nearest tree with minimal effort. And then Sam waited. Waited and really hoped that the permanence of the mark that he'd made wasn't going to cause any lasting problems for anyone.

Standing under the boughs of the tree provided a little shelter from the rain while Sam waited, and waited, and waited longer than he'd ever considered that he'd have to wait for the devil.

Just when he started to doubt every last inch of this stupid plan of his and consider going back inside and getting into some dry clothes and maybe looking to see if there were some Happy Days reruns on, someone touched him. Hands sliding up over his shoulders from behind, when the only thing at his back should have been a redwood.

The reason for him being out amongst the trees was waylaid in favor of taking a generous step away and pulling his gun.

If the amused curl to his mouth and the uneven jostle of his shoulders was any indication, then the devil was laughing at Sam. Chuckling too soft to hear over the rain. "The years have been rough on both you boys, if you both drawing .45s on me is any indication."

Sam let out a breath that he didn't realise he'd been holding, tucking his gun back into the waistband of his jeans. "We don't like being surprised."

"I'll try to make a bit more noise next time."

The offer did not make Sam feel any better. "So, uh, you're you again today?"

The sparkle hadn't left his pale eyes "...I'm always me."

"I mean that you decided to just exist in my head instead of stealing someone's body." Sam blinked water from his eyes.

Lucifer looked down at himself and his rapidly dampening tshirt and slightly muddy bare feet. "Fun story, this is actually a new body, quite solid and alive and I'm enjoying being able to touch and smell the world again."

Which made Sam do a double take, looking over the other man who stood out here with him, and the tired lines on the corners of his eyes and the relaxed slump of his shoulders. As far as he could tell he was looking at the same man that had hitched a ride in the Impala years ago. "You… you somehow managed to find a body that looked exactly like your last one?"

Lucifer kept that crooked little smile. "No. Just another body on loan for the next hour or so. But I'm still an archangel so I can look however I want to. Besides, you like this face."

And that was a weird idea.

The past few hours Sam had spent face first in his laptop, reading as much as he could about the devil and angels and anything at all that he could find that seemed like it would help him out with what he was planning to do. All that research hadn't really given him anything that seventeen year old Sam hadn't already learned from libraries and Bobby's books. He added to his small well of knowledge that apparently archangels had the ability to change what they looked like. This was not information that felt would be even remotely helpful in his everyday life- but hey, it was always nice to learn new things.

"... ok." Sam did his best to not let himself get too distracted. "I needed to talk to you."

The devil showed a bit of teeth as his smile widened into a grin. "Obviously."

"It's about our deal-"

"You don't have to pussy foot around, Sam. Just say yes and save us both from a conversation that can't be easy for you."

"I want to rework the terms."

"You'd like something other than the yellow eyed demon as your crackjack prize?" His expression twisting into something very curious as the rain ran unheeded over his face. "Because much like you offered me, I'll give you anything- only I won't hold out on you. Say the word and it's yours."

"No, uh, I want to change what I'm giving you."

"Oh, honey. No." The devil laughed, bright and mocking and so very amused. "You don't get to say what I take. You already offered anything, and that anything _is_ going to be you."

In his life Sam had seen some unspeakable things. Horrors that still haunted him, that would haunt anyone. Things that gave him nightmares to that day- and yet somehow the conviction that Lucifer used in that simple statement managed to terrify Sam more than pretty much everything else he'd ever come across.

"Uh, flattery aside, Luci- we need to do some reworking of this contract."

He shook his head, luckily not annoyed, but so very stubborn about this fact. "You are perfect though, Sam. You were practically made for me. I'm not going to change my mind."

"I-I'm not saying I need you to change your mind on the _what_ , just the _when_." The offer felt crazy. To be fair, almost everything that Sam had done since Dean had taken him away from Stanford a few months ago had felt pretty crazy.

The quiet amusement dropped out of Lucifer, his eyebrows hitching up and his head tilting in open curiosity.

"Like I told you last night- I've got to stay here. I've got to help Dean." Sam had made some peace with himself over the last few weeks. Jess was gone, he'd already missed a whole semester of school. It wasn't that he _couldn't_ go back to California. It was that all he had to go back to, to being 'normal', no longer had the pull that it once did. On the road with his brother, riding shotgun, helping people… as much as he'd always hated and resented it, it felt more like home than anything else that he'd tried. "But if you can help us, and our dad, to find the yellow eyed demon…"

Sam steeled himself, "you can have my body when I'm dead."

As generous as the offer was, Lucifer didn't seem to appreciate it as much as he should. "I need a live body, Sam."

"That girl, the one you wore last time you came, you said that she'd killed herself but you brought her back." And that didn't sound right. It didn't sound even remotely like the right thing. The idea that the devil could bring someone back from the dead opened a world of terrible possibilities that Sam didn't even want to explore. "You could do the same for me. It's not like hunters have a long shelf life. Most don't make it into their forties. I'm certainly not going to last forever the way that Dean and I are going… So just… just wait a few years I guess, and then I'm all yours."

Rain had made the devil's hair a bit darker, an almost strawberry sort of blonde where it curled against his forehead. He watched Sam with that calm and unwavering expression of his, all sorts of quiet thoughts moving behind his eyes. "And how do I know that if I were to bring you back from the dead that you won't just try to sweet talk your way out of it again?"

"I promise."

"You are very good at breaking your promises, Sam."

"I'll sign a contract, or whatever you usually do with people when they agree to let you steal them."

The devil _hummed_ thoughtfully, slowly walking a circle around Sam like he was considering a rather expensive purchase. His feet making odd little noises as he moved over the bed of pine needles and damp earth. "And if… if you decide to try and back out again, what do you recommend that I do with you?"

"I won't."

"You probably will." Lucifer flicked the dripping ends of Sam's hair, casual and easy. "We both know that you're not the sort of person to give up fighting the good fight."

"Luci,"

"You are a bad man, Sam, and I should know since I'm one too. You are always going to try and keep fighting, and I respect that. I do. It's one of the reasons that you and I are so suited to each other. We're both so, so very stubborn."

Sam squared his shoulders, annoyance creeping in as his very integrity was brought into question. He was an honest man. He tried his best to be a good person. And here the devil was, telling him to his face that he couldn't be trusted to keep his word. "You can have my body when I'm dead. That's my offer, Satan."

The devil's mouth made a surprise little o shape as he placed a hand over his heart like he'd been wounded. " _Satan_? So it's just 'Satan' now. No cute little nicknames? Oh but I hit a soft spot. Didn't I?"

"I'm trying to clarify a poorly defined deal between us here. You're not losing anything, you're just being given a date of payment."

Lucifer made another slow survey of Sam, walking around him the opposite direction this time as he inspected the offering laid out before him. He was close enough to smell. Close enough that his elbows brushed the sleeves of Sam's jacket, bumping against the hunter in a way that could only be deliberate.

It was teasing and unnecessary.

And Sam did his best not to enjoy it because this was supposed to be serious right now and not time to flirt. It was never time to flirt with the devil. Sam simply didn't push back. Didn't smile, or lean into the touch. He just stood his ground and waited.

Apparently no one had told the devil that flirting was inappropriate though, because once he'd made his circuit and come back around to face the hunter he reached up and straightened the collar of Sam's jacket.

"...what are you doing?"

The devil looked up from where he was fussing over Sam's clothes, his eyes a colorless sort of gray in this light. "I'm thinking it over."

"Is touching me really necessary to the whole thinking process?"

A scoff of laughter went with the little hook on one side of his mouth and he let his hands fall away from Sam. "I want collateral this time."

"Collateral?"

"You like this stupid repeating words game, don't you? I'd thought that you would have grown out of it by now."

Somehow Sam had managed to not take into account just how difficult this man could be, and it left him grinding his teeth while rain water ran down the back of his neck and left a wet path over his shoulders and back. "What exactly do you want as collateral?"

"Your brother."

"Excuse me?"

"Did I stutter?"

"You can't have Dean. He's- he's not mine to give, and there's no way in hell that he'd go anywhere with you."

"In this scenario he doesn't get a choice." A smile that looked far from genuine crept over the devil. "Now, I have to have full consent to do anything interesting with that body of yours, being an angel and all I'm beholden to some very strict rules- but I'm not interested in possessing your brother. I can hide him away in a pit in the deepest darkest corner of hell, there is a vacancy where I'm supposed to be locked up, after all- oh, don't look at me like that, Sam. It's only a contingency of what would happen if you try and break our promise. I won't harm a hair on his head as long as you keep up your end of things."

Sam didn't like deals that put Dean in danger, and he knew that his brother would like them even less. This whole conversation did little else other than remind Sam that what he was dealing with wasn't person, but a very real monster that, as a hunter, he had no idea of how to fight or even defend himself against… other than keeping his promise.

But he could.

He could keep his side of a promise with the strange and very solid comforting feeling that the devil would keep his.

It's not like it was even a bad deal. If things went how he was proposing then Sam would be dead- so it's not like he'd be missing out on anything. More importantly the yellow eyed demon would be dead. It's not like Dean would be hell bound (which should never have been put on the table to begin with), or even all that upset with Sam's deal because in all likelihood if Sam was dead then Dean inevitably couldn't be that far behind anyways. They could die together in some sort of hunt gone wrong, and Sam could will his no longer useful body to the devil and no harm no foul. Right?

Only one thing still weighed on him in this proposed future of uncertainties.

"We, um, we don't know how to kill a demon."

The devil leaned against the nearest tree, his arms folding over his chest as he toyed with his lower lip. "Most people don't. I think the demons prefer it that way."

"If we have the yellow eyed demon Dean and Dad aren't going to be satisfied with just exorcising him. They want him dead. Very dead."

"And you don't?" Which wasn't what Lucifer should have focused in on.

"I…" Sam's frown deepened. "I don't want him alive. I don't want him wondering around, possibly killing other kid's moms. I just don't necessarily want to skin him like the rest of my family does. A quick death and we can be done with it. Being done sounds… like a relief after all this time."

The devil considered those words for a bit longer than necessary before finally nodding. "That's fair." And then he unfolded his arms and held out a knife, for all the world like he'd pulled it from a sheath at his side instead of from thin air. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the short blade, but Lucifer held it like a gift. "This will kill most things that come out of hell. You shouldn't have any problems using it on Azazel."

Sam had been reaching for the simple handle that looked to be carved from antler or something similar, but he stopped. "Is that the demon's name."

The devil only nodded.

"So... we're agreed on my terms?"

A second nod followed. "But I'm getting more than a verbal contract this time, Sam. Since apparently you will only argue with anything less."

Sam pulled his hand away from the knife, a funny sort of feeling taking place of all the previous angry and defensive ones. "Like a crossroads sort of contract?" He'd been reading. He had a pretty good feeling how those deals were typically sealed.

A flash of teeth and the devil was laughing again, chuckling softly as a sudden roll of thunder shook the clouds. Which wasn't super ominous or anything. "I meant that you'd be signing an actual physical contract, but if you wanted a kiss all you had to do was ask, Sam."

Heat rushed to the hunter's cheeks and he hoped that with the cold of the rain it mostly went unnoticed. "I don't-"

"I'd assumed that you'd gotten over your little crush on me."

"I don't have a crush on you."

"Oh no, no, no." He winked at Sam. "Course you don't."

So this is what being damned felt like, Sam thought to himself.

It wasn't as bad as he'd anticipated.

"Come on down here, sasquatch." Lucifer looked to be enjoying himself far too much. "Make me all sorts of promises with that mouth of yours. Promises that you're going to keep this time."

"I really don't like you." Sam said though the tightness in his jaw and the warmth that had bloomed over his face and neck.

"You can hate me for all I care, Sam. You can curse my name, spit on the ground and cross yourself whenever someone mentions me." He rather blasphemously crossed himself over his chest as neatly as if he were a priest. "As long as you keep your word this time."

Sam didn't move any closer. He just looked at Lucifer and wondered if all of this matched up to the expected levels of weird that this job entailed, or if a line had been crossed.

The devil waited just like the hunter had waited for him not too long ago. Waited and waited and waited far longer than either of them should have had to have waited for such a small decision.

Sam was grateful for the shelter that the trees, and rain, and dwindling daylight provided. It meant that there was almost no chance of anyone else in the world wondering by and catching a glimpse of the way that he stooped down, arms tense at his sides, spine rail tight, as he passed his lips over those of the barefooted man who'd stood on tiptoe to meet him.

It hardly qualified as a kiss. Sam had been more intimate with the vanilla ice cream cone that he'd enjoyed a few weeks back in Arizona. But that little brush of skin set his nerve alight like he'd stuck a 9 volt battery in his mouth. The prickling, tingling surge of something rushed through him. His breath catching in his throat and his chest hot and unweighted as if he'd just taken an hours worth of nap out in the summer sun. His feet took an uneven step backwards without him telling them to. And as Sam tried to clear the humming that had burst forth to cloud his thoughts he caught sight of the somewhat stunned expression that the other man wore.

"Contracts…" Sam struggled to put words to what he wanted to say, "contracts feel really weird."

The devil had raised one hand to his own mouth, slowly running the pad of his thumb over his lips. "That's not what contracts feel like."

"Oh." A more intelligent response probably lived somewhere deep in Sam's mind, but he couldn't locate it right then.

The other man looked so very distracted, his pale eyes drifting mostly closed as he took an uneven sort of breath. "From what I've been told they, uh, they feel like a weight in your soul."

"Well..." for whatever reason watching the devil getting lost only a few feet away was making Sam's brain move even more slowly. "Lightning storm coming in and everything. Maybe it's just a bit of weird discharge in the air."

The devil _hummed_ so softly while the tip of his tongue flicked out to taste his finger. "I want another one."

"What?" That ramrod tightness was back in Sam's spine. "Another one what?"

"Another kiss."

"Ain't going to happen."

"I've never kissed a vessel of mine before..."

"You still haven't. I'm not your vessel."

"You just agreed to be." The devil let his hand fall from his lips and he blinked up at Sam, bringing the world around him back into focus. "Sam, I am over a million years old. New experiences are not things that happens."

"Good for you?"

"I need another one."

"Still no." Sam took another step back, putting himself completely out from under whatever minor shelter that the tree had been providing and frowned himself into the worsening rain. "It was weird."

"Right?"

"That's not a good thing, Luci."

"New things are always good. New things are so rare, Sam. I don't think that you're getting this." Lucifer hadn't moved any closer, but his eyes followed the hunter's every uneasy shift. "I don't think I've kissed anyone since Emperor Constantine was in power-"

"Wait, the Roman emperor Constantine?"

"Unless there was there another Constantine that I missed somehow?"

"No…" Sam felt that pinched spot between his eyes forming when a frown couldn't just be restrained to the edges of his mouth. He could just remember bits and pieces from his art history courses a year ago, but he was fairly sure that Constantine had fallen from power in the mid 300s, which meant that the last time someone had kissed the devil was nearly two thousand years ago.

"Round about when he was emperor. I don't remember the exact date. It's not like I keep a diary." The devil shrugged to off like the logistics were the least important part of the story he was trying to tell. "Science and medicine, even math, all change over the years. They advance as new discoveries happen. Kissing doesn't change though. Sex doesn't change. They are both very human needs and they were interesting and sinful and different at first but they got very boring very quickly." The way he was still watching Sam said that he was willing to reconsider this assessment. "That was not boring though. That was different."

"It was weird." Sam refused to change his mind.

"Oh come on. I didn't know hunters were so squeamish."

Those were fighting words. Those were the sorts of things that Dean would say to him to get him riled up- and Sam struggled against the need to prove the devil wrong. "If we're done here then I'm going back inside."

"Don't be a prude, Sam. Just a little one." It seemed that the devil was an expert pouter, eyes going soft and the downward turn of his mouth begging softly.

"No. Please don't be weird about it."

"The first kiss hardly could have counted. We both know you can do better than that."

Despite the fact that it was probably part of his job description, Sam had never really considered the fact that the devil might try and tempt him. A very tempting sort of temptation as it happened to be.

"Can I just take the knife and go?"

The devil sighed and flipped the knife over and over in his hand, the casual trick sort of toss that Dean did from time to time that looked, and probably was, fairly dangerous. "A deal is a deal- but you were more fun when you were all mooney eyed over me."

"Yeah, well, sorry to disappoint." Truth be told, the longer they spoke the more Sam was forced to realise that the feelings that he'd had as an impressionable teenager really hadn't changed all that much over the years. He'd only gotten more stubborn. "The knife and where to find the yellow eyed demon… please?"

"Yeah, yeah. But one day, Sam, you're going to want something else from me, and I know exactly what I'm going to ask for."

It might have been a bit strange that Sam oddly found himself looking forward to that possibility. But he kept it to himself.


	9. Chapter 9

"It looks like a hunting knife."

"Probably because it is a hunting knife."

"A _demon_ hunting knife?" Dean seemed skeptical on the whole business. The knife sat between them on the motel room's little table, where it had been since Dean had waltzed himself back in at little after 10am with coffee, bagels, and a smile that had had nothing to do with hustling pool the night before. "And the devil just gave it to you?"

"He also told us how to summon a demon," it's not like Sam had messed this one up. He'd done really well with his nocturnal bargaining, or at least he'd thought so. "And we've got the name of the demon, so all we have to do is call up Dad and then we can finish this."

"What did you trade him this time?"

So much accusation in the simple question, Sam only wished that he didn't have to feel guilty about his answer of "...nothing."

" _Nothing_?" And it was possible that Dean had been the one to teach Sam this pointless repeating of words that he didn't feel like believing.

"Nothing _important_." Sam shook his head, folding his arms over his chest in a way that was only the tiniest bit defensive. "Come on. This is a the kind of help that we've been holding out for and you're treating it like it's some kind of trap."

Dean just kept on frowning at the knife same as he had been for the past five minutes or so. "I don't like the idea of you making deals with the devil, Sammy."

Frustrated, Sam blurted, "oh my god. Dean. I'm an adult, you can't keep bossing me around and telling me who I am and who I'm not allowed to talk to."

"This is Satan we're talking about." Dean passed a hand over his eyes with an aggravated burst of breath. "You're making deals with the literal devil, and you're telling me not to worry about it."

"Little deals. No one's going to get hurt."

That look was back. That withering look that only Dean could put so much salt into. "Can you even hear yourself?"

"You know what? I'm going to pack and get the stuff into the car, and you're going to call Dad and tell him that we did in a few hours what he's spent the last twenty years trying to do. Find out where he wants to meet." Sam pushed away from the table and went to go shove his laptop into his bag and find his shoes.

"What did you give him this time, Sam?" Dean pressed, asking again, so quietly. And it was there in his voice, in the way he just watched his little brother. This was a matter of trust between them. Dean _needed_ to know what Sam had promised the devil- either because he knew this choice would inevitably have some weight later in their lives, or because the protective streak in him wouldn't allow for anything less.

And at the end of the day, all Sam ever really had was whatever change was left in his pockets, and his big brother. His brother who was still waiting for an answer.

Trust between the two of them was everything.

Sighing, Sam sat on the edge of his bed, pulling his shoes and and tying the laces a little tighter than wholly necessary. "I told Lucifer that he could have my body when I'm dead."

A sharp sound that could have been mistaken for laugher came from Dean. "As in a 'fuck you, Satan' kind of way- or are you actually dumb enough to have promised him he could have your corpse."

"Between the two of us, Dean, you're the one with a track record for fucking stupid choices." Sam picked up his bag and grabbed the knife off the table, tucking it away safely.

"What the hell makes you think the devil won't just come out here whenever he feels like it, pop a cap in your scrawny ass, and then wear you home?"

If anyone could read him like an open book, it was Dean- but still Sam thought that he might have done a believable job of not flinching in the face of such a suggestion. "He wouldn't."

"He's the devil."

"He wouldn't."

"It's nice that you trust your buddy Satan so much, but you'll have to excuse me if I don't run right out and join the fan club."

"I'm going out to the car. Are you coming?"

Dean laughed again, though it was very strained. "Oh, I see what this is. You still have a thing for him, don't you?"

Refusing to even justify that with a response, Sam simply stepped out onto the porch and into the misting sort of rain that lightly cooled the warmth that he could feel creeping into his cheeks. Maybe there were some unresolved, unsorted, unnamable feelings that he thought he'd overcome years ago. He could shove all those wayward thoughts and impulses aside and keep going with the sure knowledge that given enough time he'd be over those unsteady impulses he felt whenever he found himself too close to the devil. It was nothing more than a childhood crush that he hadn't found closure on yet. It would just take some time.

"You got to get over it, man." Dean called after him, reading his baby brother's mind, the heavy sound of his boots hitting gravel as he jogged to catch up. "The devil wants to get inside of you, Sammy, but not in the same fun way that you're hoping for."

The idea gave life to a brilliant spark of heat in Sam's gut. Tight lipped and looking straight ahead at the trail, he walked towards the parking lot.

Dean kept on running his mouth, ignoring the fact that he wasn't getting any kind of rise out of Sam. "I mean, I can't say that the cute girly version of the devil we got the other night wasn't tempting, but he's still the fucking devil. That's what he does. He lies to you and tricks you. Dude, you've got to get past your weird little crush and look at the lore on this guy-"

"What lore, Dean?" Not engaging in the conversation would have been the smart thing to do, but the brothers were about to get into the Impala and back on the road, which meant that Dean would have a confined space to lecture Sam for the next few days. It was best to just get it over with. "There's nothing conclusive in the lore. It's not like bloggers of the world have been out there interviewing the devil. There is more consistency in Bigfoot theory than there is in the things written on the Devil. All I've ever been able to find is the bible and a couple different translations of holy text, and the only thing they all have in common is that Lucifer was the first born angel and he got kicked out of Heaven after a war. There's not even a consensus on what the war was about. So that means all I've got to go off of is that this man helped us hunt and kill a monster that was killing kids, he's saved my life twice, and he's told us how to kill the demon that killed Mom. And if all he wants is my corpse once I'm done with it then he's welcome to it."

Dean took out his keys, opening the back seat of the car and tossing in his bag. "Yeah, well… I still don't like it."

"You don't have to." Sam's bag joined his brother's like two lumpy passengers huddled together on the baseboards.

"I don't trust him."

"You don't have to. You're not the one who made a deal with him."

Dean looked at him over the driver's side of the car, his eyes as hard as the line of his mouth. "If you don't think that this affects me too then fuck you, Sam."

.:.

Some things in life were immensely satisfying. The anticipation of an event that you waited years for finally paid off- and every moment that you'd reached was just as rewarding as you'd always hoped.

For normal people this dream that they'd put on a pedestal might be graduating from school or getting married. You know, normal kinds of things.

For some people though, the sorts of people who'd always kept out on the fringes of what anyone would consider normal… people like Sam and his brother and their father; that beautiful shining moment was killing the demon that had killed Mary. And whereas the dream of revenge had kept them going through hell and high water the end result was… underwhelming at best.

They'd laid their trap in the husk of a long abandoned farmhouse far north of Saint Louis, a few miles from the nearest main road. Wallpaper peeling and faded, scrawled over with ancient graffiti left behind by youths who'd probably all grown up and owned homes of their own by now. Leaves and garbage and the underlying sour smell of mold had crept into nearly every corner of the home. The roof was missing in places, bare support beams and starlight clearly visible. And really, the only remarkable thing about the whole house was the devil's trap that had been carefully painted over the weathered floorboards and the dead demon laying in the center of it.

After stabbing the demon upwards of eighty times and then falling into silence, sitting on the floor and putting his face in his hands, it seemed that something in John had broken.

Not really knowing what else to do, the brothers had left their dad alone with the dead body. A silent decision which felt like the only one in the light of what they'd done.

The thick layers of dust over every surface meant that he kept his hands uncomfortably shoved down into his pockets. Sam looked deep into the stained sink basin of what must have once been a well loved kitchen. For one of the first times in his life that he could remember, he felt at a complete loss of words.

It was done.

The thing that had killed Mom was no more.

What was left to say?

"So…" Dean was examining the dirt and red paint caked into the cracks in his nails. "You headed back to California now that it's all over?"

A soft grunt resonated low in Sam's chest.

Dean started to busy himself with arranging the shattered remains of a tile, trying to figure out how they could all go back together again, wasting a few rough minutes before he tried to break the silence again. "I mean, it's done. Right? I think I can get enough cash for a bus ticket for you-"

"There might be a case in Colorado."

Dean looked up, and the questioning hitch of his brows was almost easy to miss in the wan light coming in from the filthy window above the sink.

"I was reading local papers online this morning. Couple suspicious suicides in a girls dorm out at one of the state universities. One girl every first wednesday of the month since the semester started."

"A girl's dorm? As in a whole building full of girls?"

"Yeah," right then would have been a bad time to smile, what with the mess in the other room. So Sam kept his face schooled into a quiet, neutral sort of expression. "I figure if you want to drive, it would sort of be one the way. We could check it out at least, see if it's out thing…"

Dean spared a glance towards the hallway that hid all that they'd done that night. "Well, I mean, they must be terrified. We should definitely look into it."

And it's not like they snuck out the back door and left Dad alone. There were words of parting once the old man finally pulled himself together enough to join them. Apparently now that all the 'to-dos' had been checked off the list, John planned to go visit another hunter out in Wyoming. He told his boys to stay safe and if they fucked anything up too bad to call him.

Life didn't get much more anticlimactic than that.

At least in the few hours that they'd spent in one another's company there hadn't been any fighting, for once. John had readily accepted the half assed lie his sons had fed him about where the demon killing knife had come from, and how the boys came to the knowledge of summoning rituals. Sam had said they got it all from a hunter that they'd met after their last case up in Washington- and thankfully Dad hadn't dug too much after that. He even graciously let the boys keep their new found weapon, though they all seemed to silently hope that there would be no more use for it.

And then Dad was gone and as the Impala's headlights cut white hot gashes into the westbound strip of highway, Sam wondered if they would be seeing him again. More importantly, he wondered if he cared. John Winchester had been more terrifying to him than any monster he'd ever faced, and with a weirdly guilting sort of feeling he hoped that that had been their last goodbye. He hoped that Dad drank himself to death out in the middle of nowhere, even if it would cripple Dean, because never seeing that man again would be more of a relief than anything else. As messed up as that thought was, it didn't carry with it the same level of guilt that Sam knew that it should.

He didn't share these thoughts with his brother. He just reached between them and turned up the volume on the cassette tape that Dean had popped in, flooding the car with a power ballad that his brother didn't even hesitate to sing along with.

Hours later they found themselves between cities, not quite having reached dawn, though the sky looked almost possibly less dark over the corn fields to the east. Dean pulled the Impala down a rather disused looking service road and parked her behind some scraggly looking apple trees that were doing their best to hide a wellhouse.

"Need a couple hours of sleep," Dean admitted as he killed the engine and stretched his arms out above his head, fingertips brushing the ceiling with a dry whisper of sound.

"I can drive," Sam started to offer but was cut off too quickly with a-

"You look as shitty as I feel," and his brother gave an almost gentle shove to his shoulder. "Don't want you driving my baby into a ditch or something. Get in the backseat, man. A bit of shut eye will do us both some good."

He could have argued, but instead Sam crawled his way into the backseat in the same way that he used to when he was a kid. All awkward arms and legs sliding over the backrest until he found a way to fold himself into the too small space. He'd be a little cramped when he woke, but it was something he was used to.

"Hey," Sam wasn't wholly sure what he should say, only they hadn't really said anything of weight between them since every thing had happened too fast hours ago. "You ok, Dean?"

"Course I'm ok. Just a little tired is all."

Sam watched the way the leaves of the trees flickered and swayed outside the back window in whatever breeze was passing through these parts. "You sure?"

"Course I'm sure." Dean grumbled and shifted, laying down and dipping out of sight, smacking the seat between them. "Don't get all weird on me now."

"I'm not." Sam pulled his flannel shirt tight over his chest, crossing his arms and pretending that he had a blanket. "It's just… what happens now?"

"We keep hunting…as long as you're up for it, college boy. Then I guess I keep hunting on my own and you turn into a lawyer."

There were faults in Dean's plan, but now was not the time to go over them. "I mean, that demon, avenging Mom, that's what you and Dad have been waiting for for twenty years to do."

"You too."

"I was just along for the ride, Dean. We both know that."

"Shut up." Dean grumbled without much heat behind it.

Not sure what to add to make it right, Sam mumbled under his breath, "I'm just glad it's finally over, I guess."

The silence in the car was tempered by their hollow breaths and the sounds of nature outside. Somehow Sam had said the wrong thing. For whatever reason, relief was not the feeling that Dean was hoping to share at the end of this hunt. But what he was looking for from his baby brother was anyone's guess.

"As long as we're back on the road by ten we should be able to make it to Colorado by dinner. Get some sleep, bitch." Dean finally said as he slapped a hand against the seat once more.

A tugging smile caught Sam, and he let himself believe that it was possible for everything to be ok. "Goodnight, jerk." And it probably would be, once things settled back into some facade of normal. Whatever normal for two hunters could be.

It's not like there was a set of instructions for this kind of thing.

But if there was, Sam would have been willing to bet that waking up only half an hour after passing out due to the creeping sort of itch that someone was looking at him, would not have qualified as anything remotely like 'normal'.

Sam's knees were crooked, wedged against the door while his feet sort of dangled off at strange angles. He didn't even come close to fitting in the space where he'd folded himself, so it made it exceptionally strange that there was someone laying atop him. Weightless as a cloud, but undeniably there all the same.

The devil was laying on Sam's stomach, his arms folded comfortably between his and Sam's chests. He'd bent his own legs, fit kicking idly somewhere back over his shoulder, the rhythmic movement just discernible in the dark of the car.

Taking a deep and shaking breath, Sam struggled to regain his bearings. He whispered in a sleep wrecked kind of voice, doing his best to not disturb the deep snoring coming from the front seat, "hi?"

"Good morning," Lucifer whispered back with a grin, barely restrained laughter, like they were kids at a sleepover.

"Can I, umm… can I help you with something?"

"No."

"...why are you laying on me?"

"It was the only way I could fit in here with you." The devil scratched at his jaw line, glancing around their close confines. "For such a large car you two boys sure manage to fill it well, don't you?"

Sam answered the question with another question. "Why are you here?" If the other man had weighed anything then Sam might have been more distressed, but as far as he could tell in all actuality it was still only him and Dean here in the car. The devil was only in his head- and that didn't exactly offer any kind of real comfort, but it was something at least.

Lucifer propped his chin up on a fist, peering down at the man beneath him curiously. "You called for me,"

"Sure as hell didn't."

"You were dreaming about me," he winked one of those moon pale eyes. "Calling out, so I thought I'd swing by and make sure that you're ok."

Dimly, and unwillingly, Sam's mind offered up shreds of the dream that he'd been woken from. Confusing bits of images that involved equal amounts of bare skin and bare teeth. "Can you… since you said that you're in my head now, can you see in my dreams?"

"Mmm, I _could_." He wrinkled his nose, "but that would be crossing a few privacy boundaries, don't you think?"

Sam sank back into the seat, relaxing in increments and taking that small victory for what it was. It was difficult to relax when he was serving as a bed for someone else though. A highly unnatural way to find himself, all awkwardly sprawled out and with no idea of what to do with his arms.

"I just came when I heard you calling, that's all. I figured that you'd fill me in if it was any of my business." It didn't seem like the devil was in a hurry to leave. His feet still slowly kicking the air while he watched Sam from only a few inches away.

"So I… does that mean I don't have to write you name anymore if I need you? I can just call out…" he trailed off as the devil's expression went sort of funny.

"It's not exactly my name that you've been writing."

The trees outside the windows didn't offer and help to Sam. He had a feeling that he wasn't going to like whatever answer he was about to be given, but still he made the effort, "what have I been writing the last two times if it wasn't your name?"

Lucifer chuckled. "I want to start by telling you that your handwriting is just awful," his grin was sharp and borderline mocking. "Well, long story short, once upon a time I needed help getting out of a cage. One of my brothers sort of stole some keys, broke me out of the clink…and so I owed his smug little ass a favor. He decided that that favor would be me eternally answering to the summoning words of ' _Lucifer is a bag of dicks_ '... a rough translation from the original Enochian, but you get the idea. And then he thought it would be fun to give those words to a very gossipy hunter. And for the past three thousand years or so that lovely love letter to me keeps getting passed from hunter to hunter, and on until it got to your daddy a few years back, and then you picked it up."

Denying the curl of laughter that tickled his insides, Sam still couldn't hold back a smile. The idea of someone getting the better of the devil was almost too perfect. "A whole bag of dicks?"

"Yeah, he thinks he's pretty funny."

The snoring in the front seat kept on going like the ticking of clock. "Yeah, I've got a brother like that too."

"Sadly the world is full of brothers like that." The devil sighed, his shoulders slumping a little as he looked at the wrong side of the front seat and who it was hiding from view. "Sometimes I just want to smite them all down and be free of them."

Which sounded an awful lot like a gentle death threat against Dean for no explicable reason, and the protectiveness in Sam made it impossible to stop the deep and angry breath that moved through him.

"Oh, come on." Lucifer taped a finger to the corner of Sam's lips. "Turn that frown upside down."

Fitfully, Sam turned his head side to side, trying to escape the prodding.

"It's nothing personal. I hate pretty much every since human who's ever been born. You're all a plague on this planet. Well, most humans. Not you, and I suppose that I can make an exception for that bear in the front seat, and not just because he obviously means the world to you."

Sam reached up and grabbed the devil's hand so that it would stop tracing his lower lip.

"Long before your daddy asked me for help I was hearing stories about you Winchesters. Never thought that there'd be something out there that the monsters were all collectively afraid of."

"They are not." It was too ridiculous of a thought to even entertain.

"Little baby monsters check under their beds at night to make sure that your brother isn't there, and I've got to say, there's a certain novelty to that." Eyes the color of moth wings studied the way that Sam's fingers hooked over his. A touch that was almost there, intangible and fleeting as the dreams that Sam was already forgetting. The devil twisted their long digits tightly with a slow and thoughtful noise a bit too much like a purr. "Oh, but I was curious what sort of humans could really get all the collective evil of the world shaking in their boots. And then I finally got to meet you, and I've got to say that you boys don't dissapoint."

Sam briefly considered taking his hand back, but most of his will was currently being funneled into frowning harder than he'd ever frowned before.

"You scare me a little, and I like that about you."

"I scare you?" Sam sort of stumbled over the words, baffled as he watched the man laying on him fit their hands together.

"What you and yours did to Azazel?" Lucifer whispered soft and low. "I mean, I never liked him personally, but _wow_." He said like he'd seen the whole thing. Like he'd been lurking in the corners and standing witness to their justifiable homicide.

Sam never touched the demon. All he'd done was read the summoning spell because out of the three of them he had the cleanest latin. To be honest, even in the face of what that creature had done to Jess, to the girl that he'd been in love with, he hadn't been able to watch when John got into it. Stabbing someone more than fifty times was not a fast process. It was slow, and messy and took a staggering level of commitment. Sam had had to look away.

"If… seeing as I didn't actually call for you, do you mind leaving?" He struggled to push that still very visceral and fresh memory from his mind. "I'd like to get what sleep I can."

"I suppose that's fair." Lucifer mused softly, eyes moving over Sam's face like he was memorising every agitated little line. "Should we lay out some parameters for the future to avoid this sort of… awkwardness on your part?"

"Parameters would be good,"

"Should I only come around if you're awake?"

"Ideally, yeah."

"Your way sounds boring." Lucifer raised their joined hands and pressed them to a cheek, looking thoughtful and so very strange with the tenderness of the little movement.

"... why are you nuzzling my hand?"

He blinked, sort of startled and he released Sam like he'd been caught doing something wrong. "For reasons that will only sound incriminating if I say them outloud I'm going to simply refuse to answer that."

Sam realised that he wasn't brave enough to press the matter. He didn't think that he'd like whatever answer he was given.

"Yeah, ok." The hunter sort of trailed off, not sure at all how to feel about any part of what was going on, which seemed to be on trend with every other second of every minute that he'd ever spent in this man's company. It was for the best though. People shouldn't let their guard down where the devil was concerned. Sam's reluctance at everything was almost definitely some kind of self preservation chiming in a little too weakly and a little too late to do much good.

"Before you kick me out, can I say that I'd sort of hoped that you were calling for me to give me back my knife?"

"We don't get to keep it?"

Lucifer chuckled, the tip of his tongue toying with the crooked little edge of an incisor. "It would be mighty irresponsible of me to let someone like you go walking around with a demon blade, don't you think?"

"Going to have to argue with you and say that leaving it with us is going to do the most good possible for the most people."

"I'm kind of supposed to be the father of all demons, not literally- but metaphorically you see, and I can't really let a couple of yahoo, trigger happy, hunters like you and Dean go parading around with one of the few things that can kill them. Now can I?"

This wasn't Sam's first rodeo. "What will you trade us for it?"

"Oh sweet boy, I could listen to you talk to me like that all night-" he bit his lip, looking down at Sam like he was some sort of dessert, "but no. You don't get to keep it. That wasn't part of our deal."

"Please?"

"Oh, ' _please'_? Why didn't you say that in the first place? All I wanted was a little politeness."

The teasing wasn't necessary and Sam didn't appreciate it.

"I've already taken it out of you bag. But it seemed like I should explain now why it will be missing latter, so you don't go for it in a moment of need and come up empty handed."

"Gee, that's real nice of you?" Sam couldn't really make a big fuss, seeing as technically the knife hadn't ever been his in the first place. Didn't mean he had to appreciate the devil going through his things.

"I do try," Lucifer winked and nuzzled down into Sam for just a moment, drawing their faces close together. "Just for you, I do try."

"We're going to, uh, need to establish some boundaries." Sam blinked, struggling to keep the other man in focus when their noses were almost touching. "Because this is way too close."

"But I'm not technically here."

"Too close."

"You can't even feel me."

"And I don't want to." Sam explained. "Just, no more sitting or laying on me. Alright? It's weird."

"You are possibly the least fun human that I've ever met."

"I think I can live with that."

"Sammy, who the hell are you talking to?" Somewhere during their quiet conversation the snoring in the front seat had stopped, and now the top of Dean's head and his bleary, sleep dimmed eyes were glaring at Sam over the back of the seat.

"The… the devil." Sam winced, remembering that when Lucifer was in his mind no one else could see him. "He wanted his knife back."

"You didn't let him take it, did you?"

"He didn't give me much of a choice." Sam glanced from his brother to the man still laying atop him and struggled to accept that technically only one of them was actually here.

"So no more demon knife?"

Uneasily, Sam forced himself not to look at the devil who was grinning at him. "Guess not. But we made it this far without a demon slaying knife, so we'll probably be ok."

The tilt of Dean's head indicated a shrug. "Yeah. We'll be alright. Sure would have been nice to have though."

"You want me to try and get it back from him?"

"Fuck no, man. Don't want you owning no more favors to that father of all lies, son of a bitch, sarcastic, devil in disguise, fucking ass hat-"

"Bag of dicks?" Sam offered with as straight of a face as he could manage.

"Bag of dicks," Dean grinned, sitting up a little bit more, "underwhelmingly evil, vanila Satan knock off, prick."

Lucifer was laughing. A restrained chuckle that came out in sharp hisse, his head bowed, shoulders shaking as he seemed to relish in the onslaught of insults.

"You saying you don't like him?"

"I'm saying fuck that guy. We've got enough troubles with out the devil himself making pretty eyes at you."

And Sam couldn't argue with that.

"We don't need that level of weird." Dean rolled his eyes. "I mean, I know he gets you all hot and bothered, you kinky bastard, but you've got to draw the line somewhere."

Lucifer's laughter passed into a range that was not audible. He buried his face in his arms and just shook with mirth.

"Dean!"

"I-I think I might love him," the devil wheezed, peeking up from beneath his eyebrows to gaze at Sam. "He's _so_ good."

"Fuck you." Sam sighed, putting a hand over his eyes so it wasn't too obvious which man he was talking to.

"Yeah, yeah. Fuck you too, princess." Dean said with such warmth and affection. "Get some sleep. We want to both be well rested for that girl's dorm situation waiting for us."

"Good night, Dean."

"Night, Sammy." His big brother layed back down and out of sight.

Lucifer's breath ghosted over Sam's face and the back of his hand that hid his sight of the car and it's other occupants. "Night, Sammy."

The youngest Winchester kept himself as hidden as he could, not wanting to think or worry about why he could suddenly feel any aspect of the man laying on him. He silently mouthed the words ' _g'night, Luci_ '.

No response came, and after nearly a whole minute of silence that seemed to drag out into forever, he spread his fingers and looked to see that he was alone in his backseat. Alone and considering calling the devil back to him, just to see that smile again, and Sam started to consider for the first time the sheer magnitude of the problem that he had here.


	10. Chapter 10

Some hunts went as expected. You find some ghosts harassing the tenants of a college dormitory- collect a few clues, dig up a body, burn some bones. Or maybe there's a literal gremlin cutting the breaks on rental cars and causing deathly accidents, when something like gremlins shouldn't even exist- and some research needs to be done, Bobby needs to be called, and in the end the scaly green little bastards just needs to be set on fire.

Now and then hunts got strange, sometimes they went sideways and the brothers came out of it with bruises and bloody noses and giving each other stitches with dental floss while drowning pained noises and curse words into cheap bourbon.

And then there were cases like the one just north of Helena, Oklahoma. One hunt that had gone so wrong that there was no amount of stitches and blood soaked hotel towels that could fix things.

Sam's arm was throbbing, the cast that locked his elbow into a forty five degree angle felt too tight, though that probably had something to do with the swelling, or the 800mg of aspirin that the nurse had given him that hadn't even begun to touch the pain. He ignored it though. It was easy to ignore- seeing as Dean was unconscious and hooked up to machines with flickering lights and muted beeps, and all those wires and tubes were supposedly keeping him alive, but he was so pale that his skin looked grey.

Tears stung a Sam's eyes. His throat felt strangled, collapsed by an invisible fist that wouldn't let any sound pass other than stifled little noises that sounded too much like his brother's name. Dean didn't open his eyes though. Didn't give Sam a hard time for falling apart. Didn't make bad passes as the nurse and her bright blue scrubs as she came in to check on his IV.

"Any word from the doctor?" Sam's voice sounded like that of a stranger.

She gave him a tight lipped shake of her head. "Sorry. The labs haven't brought back any of the scans yet. We'll let you know as soon as we hear anything at all."

He thanked her because that's what you do, then he went right back to watching his big brother who stubbornly hadn't moved in hours. Dean had been thrown off of a building. A three story building. He'd bled an awful lot, laying out on the pavement and bent at strange and unnatural angles. It had taken Sam nearly five whole minutes to kill the Beaman (or what Dean had repeatedly referred to as a fucking-redneck-yeti), and run down the rusted fire escape, and call an ambulance because it was painfully obvious that he couldn't move his brother. The hospital had done what they could to stop the bleeding. Dean had been in the O.R. for a few hours while Sam got a cast, a couple stitches, and paced the waiting room.

Fractured spine and broken skull and Dean wasn't waking up.

"Come on." Sam whispered, urged, as if by force of will alone he could make the man open his damn eyes. "You've got to wake up. man." _You can't leave me._ In Sam's relatively short life he'd hardly ever been alone for any length of time. Dean was always in the seat next to him, in the bed on the other side of the room, just down the hall. Here he was though, only inches away, and yet it felt like miles.

Maybe one rather painful hour passed before a doctor came in. Sam could tell it was a doctor because the woman had a clipboard and a pager. She didn't smile. That was a terrible sign.

"I'm Doctor Reese, you must be Sam."

Formalities, and that was also a bad sign.

"I am," he would have stood, but that would have meant taking his hand off his brother's arm and he didn't think that he could manage that. "What did the labs, or tests, or whatever say?"

"The tests are inconclusive," she eased. "For now he's stable, but not where we'd like him to be. He's not able to breath without the ventilator and brain function doesn't look promising."

"Got to tell you, Doc, his brain function wasn't ever all that promising even before the fall." Sam joked because it's what Dean would have wanted. Sam smiled, but it made him feel like throwing up.

"We'll run some more tests in the morning." Reese promised him with this look to her that said she wasn't expecting much change. "Get some rest if you can. You're banged up almost as badly as he is."

He nodded and watched her make small notes on her clipboard before she bid him goodnight and passed beyond the curtains of the little ICU cubicle that the brothers had been tucked away behind. It felt like privacy, even though there were the sounds of nurses passing by, occasional glimpse of their sneakers as they walked past quickly, moving from patient to patient, like bees tending a garden.

Sam pressed his forehead into the mattress beside his brother's, listening to the hiss of oxygen as it made Dean's chest rise and fall in a way that seemed almost natural. "Did you hear her, Dean? She said your brain isn't working. You didn't even have to talk to this woman and she could tell what a mess you are."

And Dean didn't answer, the machines beeping softly in place of a response.

"You've got to wake up. Too many cute nurses you're missing out on here. You'll hate yourself for it." Sam was talking to himself. Talking because it's what they always did together, and it was one of the few scraps of normalcy that he could still cling to, even if no one was answering him.

Hours passed and Sam couldn't sleep. His body wanted to, but it would have felt like some kind of betrayal. So he watched over his brother like it was his job to, and waited until the dawn hours when nurses came to take Dean away and run some more tests. It gave Sam a chance to wash his face and find the cafeteria and some halfway decent coffee. He got a little lost simply standing in one of the breezeways of the first floor, holding his coffee like a life preserver and looking out the window at the parking lot. Cars bearing visitors and physicians slowly filled in the empty spaces and strangers made their way into the hospital alone or in groups of twos and threes. No one broke stride. No one was running. They all just moved in this organically slow and easy way, like it was all so natural and there was nothing really wrong here.

Before Sam realised it his drink had gone cold in his hand.

Rubbing sleep from his eyes with his bruised but not broken hand, he returned to the intensive care floor to find Dean back in place. Still pale, still hooked up to more tubes and wires than any man had a right to be, and it was disturbing how dead he already looked.

Reclaiming his chair beside the hospital bed, Sam touched his brother's clammy arm. And he had touched enough corpses to know that there was little difference between what was laying next to him and what would soon enough be on a metal slab down in the basement.

He bowed his head and did something that he should have done the night before. Something that he would have done hours ago if his head had been anything close to clear.

It was nothing like a proper prayer, but Sam didn't think that Lucifer would have wanted anything like a proper prayer. "Luci, I don't know if you can hear me, but I need you… please?" The words were mumbled under his breath, hardly audible, but with so much hope.

Hope that seemed to be misplaced because the devil wasn't suddenly at Sam's side. There was no one here other than an unconscious brother and too goddamned many machines. He put his head back against Dean's pillow, just being close and suffering in the quiet kind of way that Winchesters seemed born to do.

A nurse shuffled in, holding the ends of his stethoscope.

Taking a deep breath, Sam sat up, fingers still pressed to the lose line of muscle in Dean's forearm. He put on a brave face, nodding, "hey. Tests come back?"

"Sweet boy, I got this body from the maternity ward, I don't know anything about tests because he doesn't know anything about tests." Lucifer's smooth and slow speech pattern sounded odd coming from the mouth of the nice latino man, but at the same time, hearing him was beautiful enough to overlook the oddness. "Make this quick, Sam. He's a God fearing man who is honored to help an Angel of the Lord- but he's on his lunch break and I don't want to get him in trouble."

"It's Dean-"

"Yes, I know. Took a nasty fall. I saw all that last night. Get to the what you need part-"

"You _saw_?"

Lucifer rolled his temporarily dark brown eyes. "I check in on you from time to time. Especially when you're out hunting those things that creep and craw. Need to see if you're going to die and I get my new pretty body. And last night a yeti tossed your brother."

"And you didn't do anything?"

"Me popping up tends to stress you two out. You weren't the one hurt and you didn't ask for my help so I figured it was none of my business."

Something like anger flared wild and hot in Sam. The idea that the devil had been there but hadn't done a damn thing to help made him mad in a way that he hadn't expected. "Do something, Luci."

"Do what?"

"Fix him, you son of a bitch."

Lucifer raised his eyebrows as a disapproving frown took over. "You're obviously having a bad day, so for your benefit I'm going to pretend you're using your nice voice with me."

"You can put him back together. I know you can." He felt like a wounded animal. Help was standing a few feet away and doing absolutely nothing and Sam wanted to strangle the other man for it. "You fixed me up when that bird thing threw me. Fix Dean."

"Honey, I don't know why the nurses haven't told you yet, but your brother is dead as a doornail."

Something like a scream burned in Sam's throat. He looked down at Dean, who wasn't moving, but all the machines were still beeping and whirring and still doing their job and Dean wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead.

He _wasn't_ dead.

"Fix him."

"Look, the lights are on, but no one's home. Humans are funny like that. You all like to keep people breathing and blood moving long after the soul has left the body… it's kind of pitiful really."

"He's not dead."

"Sam, sweetie, the ghost of your brother is standing next to you, yelling all sorts of insults in my direction. Which wont change anything by the way, just so you know-" Lucifer oddly nodded to a space near the curtain like an acknowledgement. "Sam, you're simply going to have to embrace the fact that you're now an only child."

"Shut up," Sam looked from the devil, to the prone body on the hospital bed, to the nothing beside him. And he wished to god that he could see something there other than empty space.

"Maybe try to explain to the remains of your brother that going into the light probably isn't as bad as he seems to think it is- because he's really been stressing out the reaper who's come to take him to his new home away from home. This isn't healthy what he's doing. People aren't meant to linger like this."

Sam ignored the garbage being said to him with such good intention, in favor of looking at that empty place where his brother's ghost supposedly stood, "Dean, can you hear me? Are you ok?"

"For pet's sake. Sam. No." Lucifer sighed loudly. "We're not doing this ghost whispering thing. You boys need to let eachother go."

"There's no way that's going to happen." Sam did his best not to yell. There wouldn't be any benefit to drawing the attention of various nurses and doctors to their little room. "If you can bring me back to life after I've died like you seem to think you can, then you sure as hell can fix my brother who's only half dead. So do it. _Please_."

"I'm not a saint, Sam." The devil shook his head slowly. "I'm not in the habit of performing miracles. I don't go around raising the dead."

"Make me a deal," he tried to keep the desperation from his voice, but probably failed very badly. "Anything. Just anything. Please. I need my brother."

"Humans have always been disturbingly selfish- but you're really raising the bar today." Lucifer folded his arms, a very elaborate but very faded cross tattoo curling along his elbow. "You want someone brought back from the dead just so you don't have to be alone?"

"Dean wouldn't want to die like this."

"On a hunt?"

"In a hospital hooked up to machines. Not like this."

The devil looked from Sam to that blank space beside him, seeming to listen to a voice that only he could here before rolling his eyes and making a face. "You two have some very unhealthy codependency. Has anyone ever told you that?"

"Help him," Sam pleaded.

"Your brother's telling you not to make any deals with me, Sam. He's telling you very loudly and with some exciting adjective and hand gestures."

Which probably wasn't a lie. Sam had internalised his big brother years before and he could imagine just what Dean would be saying. Nothing good, lots of short and unfriendly type words. And Sam ignored them all.

" _Anything_." Sam reiterated slow and clear, just so there wouldn't be any misunderstanding. "Luci, I swear, no changing my mind later, no extra bargaining. Anything you want, just fix him."

A thoughtful sort of look crossed the devil's face as he actually seemed to consider the offer for the first time.

"You told me a few months back that I'd need a favor eventually and you knew just what you'd ask for in exchange." Sam hated that he was even offering something so stupid. For his brother's life it felt like his bargaining chip needed to be a hell of a lot bigger, but it was pretty much the only thing that he knew the devil wanted from him. "That time is right now and I'm begging for help, so fucking help him."

"Oh, he _really_ doesn't like that one." Lucifer's eyes went a touch wide as he watched that space behind Sam. "Did you tell him about that? Does he know what you're planning to give me, or does he really just not trust me so much that he'd rather be a ghost haunting this hospital for the rest of forever?"

Sam wished that he could see the version of his brother that so cleanly captivated the devil. Not that he would take any of the brotherly advice no doubtedly being yelled at him- but he would have given anything to hear Dean's voice. Which is why he stood, holding his arms out the the man that Lucifer was borrowing. "Do we have a deal? Will you do it?"

"For you?" Lucifer looked almost annoyed. Not sympathetic or affectionate. Annoyed. Like a teenager being told to do their chores. "Yeah, I guess."

Relieved, Sam came closer, leaning down, ready and eager to get this over with so that they could get to the putting Dean back together part of things.

"No, no, no." The devil actually took a step back, leaning away as Sam leaned in for that promised kiss. "I may make deals with emotionally compromised people- but I absolutely do not take payment from them. Not that kind of payment at least."

And Sam was not in anyway braced to deal with whatever the hell that the devil was laying on him. It didn't feel like kindness, but the other options of a definition all seemed to fall short.

Awkwardly, Sam just stood there and slowly let his arms fall empty at his sides, feeling more lost and confused than he ever had at any point in his life that he could remember.

"I'll cram your big brother back into his broken frame, put a bandaid on the ugly bits that the doctors couldn't do much for- and you can just give me a call whenever you're feeling up to making payment in full. Deal?"

Nodding numbly, Sam agreed. What else could he do?

"You mind watching the doors for me? I'm not a fan of an audience and also would rather not have a doctor poking their head in for the next minute or so."

"Y-yeah." It wasn't that Sam had any interest in letting his brother out of his line of sight, but if that's what the devil needed to work, then that's what Sam would be doing.

He stepped out into the hall, doing his best to keep out of the way of the nurses shuffling past. Sam ground his teeth and promised himself that this was alright. That this was the best thing that he could have done. It was the only thing that he could have done- because moving on without Dean wasn't an option.

Deep breaths hurt, but at the same time the antiseptic bite in the hospital air felt clean and good. A cold hand slid over his arm and Sam jumped, looking over his shoulder to see that dark haired nurse who was being worn by the devil.

"So?"

"I said I would, and I did." Lucifer shrugged and walked around him deliberate and slow like the first steps of a dance. "You're my special little friend, Sam, but favors of this size are pushing my patience with you. Don't you go trying to make this a regular thing, because you wont like my answer the next time around." He looked up at Sam and despite how he was obviously trying to hold himself proud and tall, there were heavy hints of exhaustion in his eyes and the edges of his mouth. Whatever he'd done in there with Dean had taken a toll.

Sam hadn't expected that for some reason.

He'd sort of thought that whatever the devil could do with his weird 'angel magic' would all be things that could be done as effortlessly as drawing breath. Lucifer wasn't meant to look as tired and beaten down as Sam felt.

Gratitude and something he didn't have a name for made Sam's chest ache and he resisted the strange impulse to hug Satan. "No. No, if it's all the same neither of us have any intention of dying regularly."

"Yeah sure. That's what they all say." He blinked slowly, something too much like a wince in that small movement.

The need to hug grew ever so slightly harder to hold back, but Sam resisted and ducked his head in a way that he hoped showed off at least some small measure of what he was feeling right then. "Thank you, Luci."

"Yeah, you can thank me properly when you're looking and smelling less like a hot mess." And without any other parting words he walked off towards the elevator, very likely to return his borrowed body to the maternity ward.

Sam watched that man walking away. Despite still being in a bustling ICU and more or less surrounded by people, he felt very alone right then, and he wrapped his arms around himself because they needed to make that movement or he was going to fall apart.

Somewhere nearby an alarm started going off. Someone's machine making announcements of imminent death or something or other. Sam was only vaguely aware of it as he watched the devil get into the elevator and vanish from sight.

"Sammy?"

If there was anything that could have called Sam back to reality right in that moment it was the sound of his brother's voice. He ducked around the curtains in time to see his big brother sitting up and fitfully picking the tape from his arm that was holding his IV in place. Before Sam could manage some kind of happy shouting there were nurses were pushing past him.

It seems that Dean's machines were the ones shouting and complaining. Which made sense seeing as about a minute ago he'd had a tube down his throat and monitors on his chest and neck- all of which he'd pulled out of and off of himself.

Whatever the devil had done to Dean had apparently been fairly spectacular, because the man who'd been practically dead only moments before now had the strength to try and fight off the two nurses who were so desperately trying to get him to lay down while they figured out just what the hell was going on.

"Get your hands off me." Dean was roaring from behind very well meaning and surprisingly strong nurses. "I'm fucking fine- Sammy, tell them I'm fine."

Only Sam didn't know that his brother was fine. He didn't know the limits of the devil's ability to make people _not dead_. "Dean, calm down. They're nurses. It's ok."

It took a lot of convincing.

The fact that Dean was being man handled by a tag team of women, who were putting their hands all over him, probably was the key component to the calming of his fight or flight response. It definitely had more weight in the situation than whatever Sam was saying.

He could tell by the way that his brother sort of laughed and said, "hey at least buy me a drink first, sweetheart," as the nurse in black scrubs practically sat on top of him, leaning her weight into his shoulders to keep him in place.

Apparently the hospital wasn't used to the sudden and complete recovery of its patients. Medical staff sort of swarmed over Dean- and the minute that the older hunter had a few seconds to breathe he was looking to his baby brother and in no uncertain terms saying, " get me the hell out of here."

Which was easier said than done.

This wasn't the brother's first visit to a hospital, it was however their first time trying to get past so many nurses who didn't think that Dean had any right to discharge himself. In the end it took a fairly big distraction such as Sam setting off the building's fire alarm. He didn't feel good about it, after all, the flashing lights and blaring siren sound certainly couldn't have been all that relaxing or comforting to the other patients on that floor of the hospital- but it needed to be done.

Being recently mostly dead did wonders for Dean's mood. He was grinning as they cut across the parking lot of a grocery store on the way to where the Impala had been left the day before.

"Slow down,"

"Come on, man." Dean's stride covered a concerning amount of ground. "I want to get the fuck out of this town."

"We need to talk."

"We can talk in the car, brother. As soon as I get into my own damn clothes-" the last part was sort of said to himself as an afterthought. Back in the hospital they hadn't been able to find the clothes that Dean had come in with. Which was probably for the best considering that those clothes were inevitably caked in dirt and blood. So they'd stolen the clothes of another patient and the fit wasn't great, but it had to be better than the hospital gown.

"You were dead, Dean."

"Out of body experience, man. Not dead."

"You can't just shrug this off."

"I didn't see any bright light. There wasn't a heaven or a hell. There was just lots of hospital, no one could hear me, and the fucking devil dragged me by the throat back into my body." Dean looked over his shoulder, challenging his brother to keep up. "There, we talked about it. Now come on."

"By the neck?"

"Yeah, that boyfriend of yours is real handsy."

Sam sighed because of all the things that they should be going over right now this one was pretty far down on his list. "He's not my boyfriend."

"Yeah, he's just helping you out of the kindness of his bitty little black heart, ain't he?" Dean shook his head and kept on going. "What did you give him this time, Sammy- and don't you tell me ' _nothin'_ because last time your 'nothin' was permission for him to wear your corpse around like a party dress." They rounded on where the Impala had been parked behind a long abandoned warehouse, out of sight of any passersby. "You got the keys?"

"You're _not_ driving."

"Keys,"

"You were almost dead a few hours ago."

"And now I'm feeling like a million bucks, so give me my car keys."

Sam hesitated at the trunk of the car, not sure if he should move to the passenger or driver's side, not sure if he wanted this fight right now. "Are… are you really ok?"

Dean held his arms out wide for inspection, impatient. "Fresh as a daisy. You want me to walk a straight line or say the alphabet backwards or something to prove it?"

"You were dead, not drunk, Dean." And it wasn't that Sam wasn't happy. He was really, really freaking happy to be arguing with his brother again. "It just kind of feels like a big deal, ok? Neither of us have been dead before."

"Yeah, well, like any good big brother I tried it out for you. Got to say, after testing the waters it wasn't your kind of thing. You wouldn't like it. Don't try it."

"I'll keep that in mind if anyone ever offers." He ran a hand through his hair and pulled out the car keys, tossing them to Dean. "You sure you're alright?"

Dean unlocked the car, going straight for his duffle and pulling out a fresh shirt. "If I decide to file a complaint I'll take it up with the mechanic who did the work." Looking all too pleased with his own joke, he changed clothes right there in the alleyway before getting behind the wheel of the car and looking impatient.

"... and you sure you're ok?"

"Look, Sammy, there's only so many ways I can say it. I'm _fine_. Now get in the damn car so we can get out of here."

He didn't like it. And it's not like Sam was questioning the quality of work here, but it's not like they had an instruction manual for how to deal with this sort of thing. So he got in the car and buckled up. "Where're we going?"

"Don't care." Dean pulled the car out onto the road and pointed them in the direction of the nearest highway. "We got the son of a bitch that threw me off the building, right?"

"Course I did." Sam frowned. "Can't let monsters think they can get away with killing my brother. What kind of example would that be setting?"

Dean was grinning again, so easy and open.

"You're really feeling alright?"

"Swear to god, Sammy, if you ask me again I will pull this car over and coldcock you- and with you all busted up like you are it's going to be a real short fight."

"It's just… I guess I'm not used to good things happening. This worked out better than expected."

"Dude, you look like you were hit by a car, and god knows what asinine thing you promised the devil this time around- but he was hella into it. I lost my favorite shirt, and am wearing shoes that are half a size too big. How is any part of this good in your book?"

"You're _not_ dead?" Sam laughed. "Sorry if I don't need much more than that to be having a good day."

"Yeah well, I do. How many stitches you let those nurses put in you?"

Lighty, Sam thumbed the little line of sutures under his jaw. "Only four I think."

"And how bad's your arm?" Easy as you like Dean was shifting into big brother mode, taking stock of the damage and worrying.

"Just some hairline fractures," he awkwardly held his cast up for inspection. He'd lost track of how many broken bones were shared between them, but he'd put it in the low twenties if he had to guess. "Should be able to cut the cast off in a couple weeks."

Nodding, Dean got the Impala going South bound. "Good, cuz' your one armed man routine is going to put a real damper on your social life, not to mention you won't be much help hunting 'til you get it off."

Sam rolled his eyes.

"Surprised you didn't ask your boyfriend to fix you up while he was there."

"You think you're being funny, but it's just really annoying and childish."

The slash of a smile that crept over Dean said that he knew full well what an ass he was being, and just how much he was enjoying himself. "So if he's already getting your body what did you offer the son of a bitch this time?"

A question with only one very bad answer. "It's… it's really stupid. Not dangerous stupid, just regular stupid. You're going to sleep better at night not knowing more than that."

"How long have you known me and you somehow think that saying shit like that is going to sit well with me?"

Sam wanted to keep the stupid little exchange to himself because saying it out loud would just make it too real. "Yeah well, you're just going to have to live with with a little bit of mystery. It's probably healthy."

"Damn it, Sam."

"Look, it's stupid and I don't want to talk about it." He slumped, straining against his seatbelt. "How far south we going?"

"Florida."

"What's in Florida?"

"Cuban food and bikinis."

It would be a lie if Sam said that he didn't enjoy both of these things, even still, "you think there's a case out there?"

"When is there not something crazy going on down in Florida?"

.:.

Dean and Sam had two very different ideas of 'crazy'. Sam was listening to a police radio app on his laptop, sitting cross legged on the floor about a foot away from the blasting ac. Dean was coming out of the bathroom with his hair slicked wet and his cheeks freshly shaved.

"Are you headed out somewhere?"

" _We're_ headed out, Sammy." Dean went and dug through his duffle, finding some cologne that, from Sam's experience, was painfully strong when used in large amounts- which sadly was the only way that Dean knew how to use it. "A night like this? There's no way we're staying inside."

Silently, Sam held up his cast, like it was a get out of jail free card.

"I'm buying you dinner and I'm finding us a couple chicks-"

"They don't like to be called chicks."

"Babes,"

"Women." Sam corrected mild annoyance as he resumed typing. "And no thanks. I've got research to do.

"Dude, Miami is waiting outside; filled with _women_ on spring break, waiting for someone to buy them drinks and whisper sweet nothings in their ears."

"Have fun with that," it's not that Sam was against dinner and stretching his legs after spending the last two days folded into the car- but he'd never been as much of an extrovert as his big brother.

"Oh no, you're not getting out of this."

"I'm injured."

"Girls love that kind of thing. Play up the kicked puppy card and you'll have 'em crawling all over you." Dean was running a hand through his hair, glancing to the mirror over the dresser.

Sam kept arguing his losing battle right up until Dean was pressing a cold beer bottle into his hand and grinning like a madman.

The bar was only a block and a half from their motel. It was called 'Kill Your Idol' and Dean seemed to think that that meant something special for some reason. Apparently the rock and roll paraphernalia on the walls sitting alongside a few taxidermy animal heads, spoke to his brother on some deep level and Sam was not one to question.

They didn't have to wait long before pleasant company wondered their way. Company in the form of two girls who might have been Sam's age, but were possibly a bit young for Dean. Their dresses were short and their heels were high. There was no hesitation before the older Winchester was buying them drinks and letting them giggle and share his recently vacated barstool. They were roommates, grad students, loved dogs, down for the weekend from Tampa, hitting a few clubs, looking for some company.

And to be honest Sam was more interested in the fact that they were both probably either Dominican or Puerto Rican and he had some curiosity over what it was like immigrating- but he could tell by the way that Dean was leaning on the bar and that the girls were giggling and playing with their straws while they spoke, that conversations about political climates and such had no place here.

Touching his cast with such tenderness, the girl closer to him (maybe named Anna, or Angela- it was really loud in the bar and hard to hear) looked up with a worried little pout. "What happened?"

Before Sam could even open his mouth Dean started in with, "We were up in Georgia a few nights back, stopping to get a drink, and my brother here saw a couple guys picking on this girl who'd come in on her own. They were trying to get her to step outside with them and she wasn't interested, and Sammy here got rid of 'em."

A pile of lies, but most of their lives were- and Sam didn't have the energy to call his brother out on it. He was positive that Dean felt justified in his manufactured history because the lie seemingly had it's desired effect. Both women _awwwed_ and cooed over Sam, touching his cast and stroking his arm.

If there was one single thing that Dean liked more than females, it was taking care of Sam- and strangely there was no doubt in Sam's mind that that's what his brother thought he was accomplishing here.

It wasn't easy worming his way out of the trap that he'd been placed into the center of, but he managed. "You know, Dean here was saying that he was really interested in getting some Cuban food while we're out here. Do you girls know any local places that are any good?"

Naturally they knew of a fantastic place and would love to show the boys.

"I was actually thinking that the three of you could go on ahead. I'm actually pretty tired, thinking of turning in for the night."

There was a bit of arguing, from the very pretty girls who would love for him to come too, and from Dean who insisted that Sam couldn't just hide out in the motel.

In the end, Sam won. By no convincing or arguing of his own.

The girl who was not named Anna had tugged on one of Dean's sleeves and said, "it's ok. I'm sure the three of us can figure out how to have a good time even without your brother."

That's all it took.

Dean wasn't the kind of man to turn down an offer like that.

So, with promises of being safe and perfectly fine on his own, Sam bid his brother farewell and good luck- though it looked like Dean had plenty of that all on his own.

Like a well orchestrated plan, the moment that the door was swinging shut behind Dean and his two armfuls of a good night, a man sat in the recently emptied seat beside Sam.

It took the hunter maybe three seconds longer than it should have for him to recognise who the stranger was. He opened his mouth to tell Lucifer that he wasn't in the mood for whatever this was about to be- but he thought better of it.

"Hey there, handsome," the devil rested his elbows against the bar and settled in, looking like his old self and not some random stranger, just to keep things interesting.

Sam only lightly shook his head and took a long sip of his beer.

"I can't tell if you're giving me the silent treatment because I offended you somehow," Luci rolled his eyes, "or because you're just in a _mood_ tonight."

Holding the rim of his beer to his lip Sam carefully said, "I'm not talking to a hallucination in public."

"Oh, is that it? You don't want to look all crazy in front of these nice people that you will never see again." He smiled a smile that made his eyes glint in the barlight. "Seeing as I'm wearing a body tonight, and really very actually sitting here, you might do me the favor of a bit of conversation?"

"...really?"

"Have I ever lied to you before?"

Sam frowned into his drink.

"Barkeep," Lucifer flagged down the man behind the counter. "My friend here would like another whatever he's drinking."

Aside from giving them a slightly strange look, no doubtedly thinking that they were both fairly drunk, the bartender brought Sam another beer.

"See, I couldn't order you a drink if I was just haunting that pretty little head of yours- you will have to pay the man though. I don't carry cash," the devil shrugged loosely, resting his chin on a fist as he peered up at Sam like he was waiting to see what would happen next.

Sighing, because he didn't even want a second beer, Sam handed over a couple bills and nodded politely as the bartender wandered off to help other people.

"You're not going to say thank you?"

"For making me buy myself a second drink?"

"It would only be polite." Lucifer examined the second bottle beside him, poking at the trails of moisture as they beaded against the glass.

It's not like Sam wasn't partially happy to see the man again, especially so soon, seeing as it was usually months if not years between their visits. But there was a certain charm and frustration in this sort of interaction- even if Sam couldn't seem to scratch the itch he felt at the idea that the devil undoubtedly wanted something, or else he wouldn't be here.

Musing softly to himself, Lucifer toyed with his lower lip, "those girls worked out better than I thought the would."

"Excuse me?"

"Well I was only guessing at what you brother's type might be. I figured when in doubt just double up. It worked out alright. Don't you think?"

"Are they… are they your's?"

"You mean…" Lucifer slowly raised an eyebrow, "are they demons?"

Sam didn't know what he'd been implying, but the suggestion horrified him. " _Are they_?"

"Of course not. I may be the King of Hell, but as far as everyone is concerned I'm still under house arrest; not out and about giving orders to seduce away hunters." The idea seemed to amuse him. "They are just two lovely ladies who were happy to be tempted, and I am so very good at tempting people who are in the mood to be tempted."

Whatever small comfort there was to be had, Sam settled into it. Lucifer apparently just wanted to talk to him without Dean there to mediate, which should have been less concerning than it was. "If you're here to collect on our little deal yesterday, I've got to tell you that I'm not ready."

"Flattering as that is, Samuel- that's not why I'm here." The devil shifted his weight, folding his arms against the bar and sitting up a bit straighter.

"Care to elaborate?"

"What if I just wanted to bask in your company?" He managed to look slightly offended that it could be for any other reason. "Did you ever stop to think that I just enjoy being crammed into small buildings with unwashed masses, getting the stink of humanity all into this newly acquired nose of mine?"

"Yeah, for some reason I don't think that's it."

His nose wrinkled just a touch. "You I don't mind as much, there's a special something that about you that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy- but how can you really stand being around these dirty apes?"

"Ok, Charlton Heston." Sam would have been more offended if he wasn't able to smell the underlying musk of sweaty bodies and liquor that was just part of being in a bar. It wasn't a particularly pleasant smell, but it was also just part of being in a bar. You got used to it.

"I'm sure that your joke was very funny to you, so congrats." Lucifer nodded gently, appreciative that Sam would waste the energy to tease him.

" _Planet of the Apes_?" But for the hunter is was an oddly sobering feeling that the devil might somehow actually not get the reference. It was just such an unnatural concept.

"Should that mean something to me?"

"...do you know what movies are?"

Lucifer gave him a very long suffering look. "Do you know how many people have sold their souls to me to become famous? _Yes_ I know what movies are- but that doesn't mean that I waste my time watching them."

"So you've never seen _Planet of the Apes_?"

"You're asking this like I've committed some kind of crime."

"It's just weird." Sam just shook his head, not sure how to feel about the idea that there could possibly be a living soul that had somehow missed out on such an iconic film. He and Dean could practically quote the whole damn thing. Like the Star Wars trilogy, Planet of the Apes had been played over their motel televisions countless times. It was like a familiar old bedtime story.

Lucifer was still watching Sam, and Sam had an inclination that this was probably a look reserved mostly for all those other humans out there that the devil didn't have all that much affection for.

Awkwardly, Sam looked away, focusing in on his still not finished first beer. "So, uh… you look like you're feeling better than yesterday?"

"A new body has a way of putting a certain spring in a man's step."

Sam would just have to take the devil's word for it. "How long are you borrowing this one for?"

"Oh, for a few years I would assume. It's not a great fit so I'm not expecting it to last forever." The slant of his eyebrows softened and he smiled the faintest smile in Sam's direction. "I mean, it's not _you_ , but I needed some flesh and bone and this one will do until you're ready to hand yours over."

Unable to hold back his frown, Sam did his best to try and hide it behind his beer. There should have been some small comfort in the idea that the Devil had been rehomed for the time being, but it just managed to feel a little like a stay of execution. "If it's not to collect on our deal from yesterday then why… um, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

The devil lit up, grinning in a way that bordered on predatory. "Oh, but you sure do talk pretty when you want to." He pulled from the pocket of his jeans a single Sharpie pen and held it aloft. "I came to sign your cast."

Sam may have snorted a surprised kind of choking laugh into his beer. "Yeah?"

"I know the custom," Luci caught at Sam's hand, a strange but not unpleasant kind of current prickling along the space where their skin touched, tugging his injured arm closer and flicking the cap off his marker. "I pay attention to things."

Weirdly charmed by the offering, Sam didn't argue or fight to get his arm back. He just let the devil write in curling script from the edge of his thumb to the bend in his elbow. Sam couldn't read a word of it. The letters weren't in a language that he recognised.

"Do I even want to ask what that says?" Sam dared as he watched the last few touches being added, the equivalent of crossing 'T's and dotting 'I's no doubt.

"It says 'this one here has been claimed, and if you even look at him wrong you will be skinned'." Lucifer finished his strange looking letters with a slightly lopsided heart, before looking up at Sam with that same slightly hungry grin firmly in place. "It should help keep you at least slightly safe… from certain sorts at least."

"Wow… that's really sweet of you."

"Right?" There was no shame in the man. He just sat there looking so pleased. "You know, sometimes I surprise myself with how sweet I can be."

Sam glanced down at the very ominous scribbles, and back at the devil who was practically kicking his feet with joy. "That's one way to say it I guess," though Sam had been sarcastic and he wouldn't have chosen the words with any seriousness.

"I only get this way with you." Lucifer pointed out as he tossed his pen onto the floor so casually. Obviously done with it. "You should be flattered."

"Oh I'm definitely something."

The other man pushed Sam's beer further down the counter, not out of reach, but definitely out of the way. "Come on, I'm going to walk you back to your motel."

"That's not necessary," he said maybe a little too quickly before adding words that didn't soften the first ones, "and it's really weird for you to offer."

"It was not an offer, it was a statement." Lucifer's eyes darted for just a moment around the room. "Sam, you told your brother that you would be heading back soon, and you're not leaving me in here with all these people. So I'm walking with you, whether you like it or not."

For the safety of the other humans in the bar Sam let him come along.

He didn't like to think about what might happen if he left the devil here without some kind of supervision.


	11. Chapter 11

Even at this time of night the streets of Miami were busy, and as such Sam was able to witness the devil being rather uncomfortably surrounded by humanity for an extended period of time. A treat that undoubtedly very few people had ever been able to witness. Lucifer walked beside him, hands jammed down into his pockets, keeping close enough that their elbows brushed a little too frequently. He didn't say much of anything, just followed about half a step behind Sam while managing to keep a close eye on the people they passed who were all loudly enjoying their night. The devil turned and dodged ever so subtly, and rather quickly Sam realised that every time the other man nudged into him it was because he was doing his best to not accidentally brush against one of the many, many strangers that they passed.

It felt like a topic best not breached, but the fourth time that Sam caught an elbow to the ribs he spoke up. "You alright there?"

Lucifer sounded more than distracted. "How are there more people out here than there were in the bar?"

"There's no maximum occupancy outside?" He offered and wished that he could look the devil in the eye while they spoke, because Lucifer's facial expressions were never not funny to him- but they were slipping their way between a few rather large and drunk groups of very happy friends. Bodies pressig in on all sides, and the other man had seen fit to walk directly on Sam's heels and follow the path that the taller man was cutting through the crowds.

Though it wasn't the most direct route back to the motel, Sam took a side street that was mostly surf and clothing stores that had closed up for the night. It gave him and the devil room to walk side by side almost like normal people do.

"Something weird happen to you between yesterday and tonight?"

For a half of a moment, Lucifer looked away from the group of rather pretty girls who were passing on their right, "depends on what 'weird' means to you, Samuel."

"You're jumpier than normal."

"It's sweet that you think you know me well enough to establish what _normal_ is." And oddly enough he then nodded politely to the women who giggled as they passed.

Sam ran a hand through his hair, frowning in part at Lucifer's comment; and partially because there was sweat dampening the back of his neck. Thinking back, he realised that, other than in the ICU yesterday, he'd never actually been out in a public place with the devil. Maybe this was normal for him?

"You keep falling over me just to avoid touching people." Sam felt a need to point out the obvious as he turned left on the next block, drifting towards the siren call of the motel sign at the end of the street. "I honestly can't tell if you've got this overwhelming hatred, or fear, of people."

Shooting him the kind of dirty look usually reserved for bodily fluids, Satan side stepped around a rather happy group of people lingering outside a convienencestore, taking selfies with raised energy drinks and wide smiles. Whether out of some wayward politeness, or just because it took him that long to get the words in order, Lucifer waited until they'd passed the group before saying rather dryly, "if I didn't know first hand that you were all made with such deliberate intent than I would say you mess were just a horrible evolutionary mistake."

Sam felt like he should have been slightly offended, but instead he found himself laughing. "Just a bunch of damn dirty apes, right?"

"Is this a reference I should be getting, or are you just that well adjusted that you aren't bothered when you and your whole species have been insulted?"

"You'd really, really like _Planet of the Apes_ ," was Sam's answer as he fished his motel key from a pocket.

"This again?" Lucifer sighed, slowing down his gait as he looked with a certain level of unspoken criticism at the slightly rundown building looming over them. The tightness that he carried across his shoulders and chest loosened up once they'd started across the parking lot. Out here it was just the two of them walking amongst the cars, away from the hustle of the streets. He'd taken his hands from his pockets and actually left a bit of breathing room between him and the hunter. "This is an important movie to you?"

"No… well yeah, I guess?" There didn't feel like a right way to answer that one.

"What an amazingly illuminating answer that was. Thank you."

"It's just sort of iconic I guess, and you sound like one of the characters sometimes." And if Dean had been here he might have voiced his displeasure at the devil being compared to such an iconic badass. Sam was alone here though, and left to his own strange comparisons.

Lucifer's lips pursed in a funny kind of way as he seemed to be thinking some things over.

Technically Sam was ready to head inside. He'd made it from the bar back to the motel like he'd intended. His temporary home was called the 'Flamingo's Nest', despite the fact that there was nothing pink or a single stilt legged bird decoration to be seen other than on the neon sign looking out at the street. Safe and sound, and the window beside his door was still dark, so his big brother hadn't taken the girls from the bar back here- a small mercy. Sam just needed to unlock the door and he'd be free- but part of him was curious in the worst way what next strange thing the devil was going to say to him.

The words were rather unexpected once they got there. "Show me."

Unexpected and confusing.

"Show you what, Luci?"

"Your movie about the ape planet." He waved a hand in the air as he slapped away a curious moth that had come to investigate the light over the door. "It probably won't feel like such a waste of time if I've got your enthusiasm to keep me company- besides it's not like I've got anything else going on for the rest of the night."

"I don't have a copy of _Planet of the Apes_ ," which was the least of the reasons as to why Sam didn't think that he should let the devil follow him into the room.

"Find it on the internet," no patience in the man as he rolled his eyes. "You can find anything on the internet, Sam. I shouldn't be the one to have to tell you this."

"How… how do you not know about movies but you know about the internet?"

The devil folded his arms over his chest and looked just a few seconds away from telling Sam to crawl up his own ass. "I know that movies exist. And the internet. I even know about coin. I'm an Angel, not some kind of cave dweller."

In the face of such a beautiful proclamation, Sam really couldn't do anything other than let the devil follow him inside.

The fact that the only place to sit was on the beds was definitely the first sign that this was a bad idea- and for some reason he chose to ignore it and just leaned up against the headboard of his queen sized bed. After all, how often is it that you get to show a movie to someone who has no time for movies, but also doesn't actually already know the surprise ending of _Planet of the Apes_?

Pirating a copy of the old classic was actually easier than finding the charger cable for Sam's computer. And the whole thing _probably_ wasn't technically a date, but something closer to two friends hanging out. Only they weren't friends, and they were sitting on a bed huddled around Sam's laptop while the devil slowly traced his fingers over the things he'd written on Sam's cast.

It was almost nice, just the two of them. Though they were definitely closer and more physically demonstrative than him and Dean ever were unless they were drunk or really super happy to be alive after a hunt- but then it was nothing but quick hugs and smacking of shoulders.

The petting situation was specific to Lucifer and Lucifer alone.

And Sam had seen this movie countless times. He didn't have to watch it as closely as his companion did. It meant that he was fully capable of listening to the swells of music and shouts of anger from the actors, while he watched the devil's long fingers tracing the typography of the plaster cast. And once he realised what he was doing and felt a wash of embarrassment and weirdly guilt, he looked down the bed, past the computer and focused his hardest on Lucifer's legs. Not because legs were better to watch than hands, it just felt safer somehow. Nicely distracting, the way that the devil's legs were folded awkwardly over the disturbingly checkered and paisley patterned blanket.

As motel rooms went, this wasn't the ugliest one that Sam had ever been assaulted with- but it came in a close third. Dean had even commemorated their stay with a journal entry of small doodles. They'd been tracking their hideous motel rooms since he'd left Stanford. Something that they'd been joking about doing since they were kids, and there was some strange pleasure about desecrating Dad's tattered old journal with entries of their own.

Sam had been debating adding a page for The Devil, but realistically he didn't know enough for anything more than a footnote. _Not as evil as you'd think, and a lot more touchy than you'd expect._

Not that Sam really minded that part as much as he knew that he was supposed to, or as much as he tried to pretend to. "You know, for someone who hates humans as much as you say you do, you sure do like touching this one right here."

"You're special," the devil sounded overly distracted, eyed fixed on the small screen as talking apes corralled groups of freeranged humans like livestock. "I've been telling you that since I first met you."

Sam shook his head, even if he knew that the other man was too fixated on the movie to notice it. "I'd rather not be special, if it's all the same."

"Everyone likes to know that they're special to someone, even if that someone is the Prince of Darkness."

"How can you be 'The Light Bringer' and 'The Prince of Darkness' at the same time? Isn't there some kind of conflict there?" From where Sam was peeking from the corner of his eye he watched the devil developing a faint pout.

"I'm trying to watch the monkey movie here, Sam."

Holding back what would only be received as an unwelcome chuckle, Sam bit his lip. "Ask you about nicknames later?"

With a soft confirming grunt, Lucifer leaned into the hunter until their shoulders hit. It was unexpectedly comfortable, despite the tickling kind of thrum that marched along that little patch of skin where they touched, somewhere between Sam's cast and his shirt sleeve.

The nine volt battery tingle tonight wasn't nearly as intense as that awkward pseudo kiss between them months back, but the first time around the weird response had been a surprise. And though the touching was just as unexpected here, the involuntary reaction was a known problem for them- known and not completely terrible. Maybe if they did it often enough the effect would continue to lessen over time, sort of like an exposure numbness. If they were lucky.

But maybe it wouldn't.

And that wouldn't be too terrible either.

In either case, Sam didn't pull away like he should have, and Lucifer didn't sit back upright. They stayed lightly crashed together like it was the most natural thing in the world and there weren't inches and feet of empty mattress on either side of them that they should move back to.

It didn't take long for things to start looking dire for the movie humans. And it was apparent from the subdued grin, that the devil flashed in Sam's direction, Lucifer was only too happy about the turn of events. "You know, these monkeys definitely have the right idea with their enslaving and experimenting on humans."

"This isn't an instructional video, Luci."

"You saying that I can't keep you in a cage and hose you off when you get too riled up?" Which would have been a really strange threat if that wasn't exactly what was happening to the people in the movie they were watching.

"You know, maybe showing you this was a bad idea?" Sam reached over to turn off the movie, and Lucifer made a frustrated noise.

"No. Leave it alone" He slapped his hand against Sam's cast a few times to get his point across. "It's not as terrible as I thought it would be."

"You're not as terrible as I thought you'd be."

It wasn't until the devil looked up at Sam with this bewildered expression that Sam realised he'd been the one to say those words.

He didn't mean them. He didn't think he meant them. It was just the sort of stupid twisting of words that he did with things his brother said- only the meaning was significantly more incriminating than he'd expected.

"I was teasing you." Stubbornly, Sam stared down at the movie, refusing to make eye contact with the man who was still tucked up beside him.

"You're shockingly bad at it."

Sam had been fighting his way through some dreadfully unwanted feelings for months now and he thought that he had learned to handle them pretty well. "Shut up and watch the movie."

It shouldn't have been so comfortable to be leaning against the other man- for multiple reasons it shouldn't have been nearly so easy and comfortable between the two of them. It also shouldn't have been so charming the way that Lucifer cheered on the apes or 'boooed' the humans who should have been considered the heros. The fact that the devil lightly applauded at when the Statue of Liberty was found toppled in the sand was practically adorable.

"You're not supposed to be happy about the end-"

"Humanity destroyed itself. What's not to be happy about?"

Laughing and avoiding eye contact, Sam stayed focused on the computer screen. "You've got some serious issues, you know that?"

"What some people might consider small character flaws, or a single minded hatred for the species that caused my fall from Heaven and subsequent imprisonment in Hell, I like to think of as delightful quirks that make me endearing and irresistible."

"Endearing and irresistible? You're really overselling yourself here." Trying not to shift too much, as he didn't want to dislodge the easy slump that they were sharing, Sam folded one of his legs underneath him. "I'd go more with walking the line between terrifying and super creepy."

"Ouch. You know you could really hurt a guy's feelings talking like that."

"I didn't know you had things like feelings." Sam managed to sound impressed.

"Indeed I do," he traced his fingers over those letters again and again, same as he had been doing for most of the movie. "I think I may have two, maybe even three feelings."

"Let's see, there's the hatred for us lowly humans;" Sam started ticking the feelings off on his fingers as he counted, "sassiness because, well obviously… but what's the third one?"

Lucifer hummed slow and thoughtful before finally answering, "I guess I was over estimating. It's just those two."

"Just sass and hate keeping you going?"

Lucifer laughed, that overly pleased little chuckle that he got from time to time. "Does anyone really need more than that?"

"I mean, it works for Dean. I just wasn't expecting the two of you to have so much in common."

The teasing and laughter faded just enough for something that sounded very much like honest curiosity to take over. "Do you think that's why you're so reluctant to touch me now?" Interest shaping confusing and slightly disturbing words. "When you were younger you were laying yourself out and practically begging me to do anything even slightly inappropriate to you, but now you keep shying away like like a virgin on her wedding night."

"Yeah, um... so people and feelings change." Sam watched the window on his laptop go dark as the movie credits ended. "I was a squirrely kid and you were there and kept touching me. You shouldn't take it too personally. Honest, I probably could have gotten it up for soup."

With a startled laugh, Lucifer sat straighter, breaking that warm contact between them and leaving a slightly cold spot behind. "Well soup I am not, and the movie is over, so I suppose that I will leave you to your quiet and brother free night?"

Could it be that easy?

Sam found it hard to believe that anything involving the devil could be so simple.

For some inexplicable reason a thought thundered into his mind. He wondered if when Lucifer left he would go back to his ill gotten summer house in the tropics. He wondered if there were other humans like himself that were lucky enough to be loosely harassed by Satan. Part of him sort of hoped that he was the only one- but not for the proper reason that would mean that some poor soul out there would be spared this really awkward torment.

Maybe there was some kind of demoralising satisfaction in knowing you were indeed special to at least one person.

Lucifer's full attention had settled onto Sam, and the simple and flawed human couldn't help but squirm under the weight.

"I'm seeing all those deep and conflicting thoughts tugging at that mouth of yours." The regular vein of sass had been wholly replaced by curiosity, like the hunter was a puzzle that begged for a solution. "Are you thinking that… that maybe you want me to stay?"

"God, no." Sam said like a knee jerk reaction. "No. The longer you're around me the more I…" he stopped that train of thought before it could so much as leave the station.

"The more you… are wishing I was soup?" A serpentlike smile caught the corners of his mouth.

"Oh, shut up." It was one thing to have Dean constantly teasing Sam about this, but the last thing that he needed was for the devil to join in.

Lucifer didn't have a reply other than leaning back against the headboard and smiling a carnivore's smile.

"Weren't you saying goodbye?"

"Yes, but suddenly this is far more interesting." The tip of his tongue traced a thin line along his upper lip as he walked two fingers along the writing on Sam's cast. "What was that you said about feelings and people changing?"

"They do- and mind did. I did." Sam insisted, shaking those wondering fingers off his arm as they found skin. He scooted down the bed, all kinds of pretense of closing down his laptop and winding the cord up nice and neat.

"I guess my understanding of human body language must be off, and blushing up to your ears doesn't mean what I thought it meant."

Sam actually slid off the bed at that, going and putting his laptop into his bag and tucking the charger cable into a pocket. It wasn't running away. Not really. He just had some things that he needed to do on the other side of the room.

Turning his back on the devil turned out to be a bad idea though. By the time that Sam turned back the bed was empty and Lucifer was gone. Apparently making good on his 'goodnight'. Doing his disappearing trick that he did so well.

Eventually Sam would have to ask exactly how he managed it- but for the time being he was just relieved to be alone.

He woke hours later, sometime before dawn, as Dean stumbled his way into the room, dropping his keys and laughing softly to himself as he struggled to pick them up without turning on the light.

"What time is it?" Sam pulled his hand back from the gun under his pillow and rubbed at his eyes.

Even backlit from the lights in the parking lot, Dean's matchstick grin would have been hard to miss. "Did I wake you, man?"

"A little." The numbers on the clock said that he'd been out for nearly five hours, which was about his usual amount of sleep, so he couldn't be too upset by the interruption. "You were out late."

"Sammy, that was the best god damned night of my life." He scraped his keys off the floor and tossed them onto the tv stand before lightly kicking the door closed. "I'd still be there if they hadn't kicked me out."

"Well at least they had enough sense to get rid of you."

"They brought me back to their friend's place after dinner," Dean's mouth running on autopilot, obviously too eager to share his adventures to mind the fact that the room was dark or that his baby brother was rolling over in an effort to ignore him. "Their friend who is a plus sized swimsuit model. The curves on that woman- hot _damn_ , they should have come with some kind of warning label."

"Neat."

"You should have been there, man-"

"I think that would have made it really weird, Dean." Sam said into his pillow, weirdly happy for, but also disturbed by, how his brother's night had gone.

"That's not what I meant, smart ass." There was the dull thud of Dean's boots hitting the carpet one after another. "I'm saying it would have done you good to get your bell rung. Even you'd have a hard time being so grumpy under three gorgeous girls, all sweaty and slow, moving together, so turned around you can't even tell anymore whose lips are on your-"

"Oh my god, Dean. Stop. Save the details for you letter to Penthouse. Please."

With an all too smug chuckle Dean went into the bathroom, shower turning on just after the door closed- and Sam relaxed a little. Whatever small congratulations he'd felt for his brother vanishing under the cloud of 'ewww'.

Haunted by mental images that he couldn't shake, Sam eventually gave up on sleep. He flipped on the bedside light and retrieved his laptop, figuring that there was time before breakfast to get some research done. Hopefully they were finished with Florida after their single night here, and they could move on to the next hunt.

Miami hadn't been the same sort of 'change of pace' for him that his brother had been looking for. Sam relaxed and took his mind off of hunting in different sorts of ways.

Rather deliberately he deleted a recent movie download from his hard drive. Not because he was ashamed of having an illegal copy of _Planet of the Apes_ , but because seeing the file on his desktop made him grin in a stupid way that he'd rather no one else ever see.

And maybe for the fact that Sam felt a little foggy headed and weak kneed when faced with the memory of sitting so very close to Lucifer the night before was proof enough that Dean might have been right. It had been over a year since Jess had been taken. So, so very long since Sam had let himself get lost in one of the more basic of human needs.

It's not like he hadn't had offers. Offers of a good time. Offers like Dean had taken last night with apparent enthusiasm enough for the both of them.

One night stands and casual hook-ups were not on Sam's menu. He could count on two fingers all the people that he'd ever been naked and intimate with. But he was starting to feel like he was going crazy. Like he was having a funny reaction to new allergy meds, all goofy in the head every time the devil got too close and touchy.

Hopefully it was just an itch that had gone too long without being scratched- and he could sort himself out tonight or tomorrow night with a few drinks and a little flirting in a bar that he'd never set foot into again.

He was positive that Dean would willingly play wingman for him.

Like he was summoned by thought alone- Dean emerged from the bathroom in a pillar of steam, scrubbed clean and naked except for a towel and numerous friendly bruises.

"Wow, Dean. Just _wow_." Sam spared a lingering glance to very faint teeth marks that peppered his brother's chest and hips.

Pride and pleasure beamed from Dean's grin in equal amounts. "Right? I'm telling you. You would have loved it there."

"Yeah, I'm not as much as a kinky son of a bitch as you, so…" he went back to his computer and the interesting news reports that he'd found. "Hey, so get this, there's been a string of bear attacks in South Carolina."

"Hey, if we hunted bears then I'm sure that would interest me."

"Bears really aren't native to South Carolina, Dean." Sam clicked between windows. "I've been looking at photos- mostly property damage at a few different places over a few weeks. But two days ago there was a home break in, door torn off the hinges, there was a married guy and his _girlfriend_ in the house, girlfriend got off with minor injuries, guy got his arms torn off and was left to bleed out. There was red clay all over the place and I don't know about you, but to me it sounds worth looking into. Besides, it's only about a day's drive."

After a bit of deliberation Dean sighed. "We've gone further for less- I'm gonna want to stop for breakfast before we get going though."

"You don't need to get a few hours of sleep?"

"Last night I slept sandwiched between a trio of beautiful women. And that's some quality sleep, Sammy, no matter how short it was. That's the kind of sleep that men write poetry about."

Though it was tempting to tease Dean about iambic pentameter, Sam resisted and got dressed instead. They had a possible bear or something more exciting to find, and then after that Sam had a possible leggy blonde to find to take his mind off of whatever it was that made him remember last night in such a strangely rose tinted kind of way.

They made it about half way through Georgia, car windows all rolled down to let the wind howl along with the Thin Lizzy's cassette tape, before Dean raised his voice to ask a rather obvious sort of question.

"What sort of humbo-jumbo you put on your cast there, Sammy?"

Squinting into the sideways sun slanting in through the windshield, Sam felt that slightly juvenile smile creeping back up on him. "It's, um, sort of like a protection sort of thing."

"Trying to keep your little broken wing safe?"

"To keep the rest of me safe I guess."

"Something you find in one of your nerdy books?" Dean teased as if the woven bracelet half hidden by his watch, and the brass and steel rings that he wore weren't all some sorts of charms for one purpose or another. "Is that some kind of Babylonian or what? I don't recognise the letters."

"I think it's Enochian."

Dean repeated the word like he was trying to remember what it meant, to figure out if he'd ever know what it meant.

"Language of the Angels." Sam clarified, pointedly turning his face into the wind to help hide whatever incriminating expression that had undoubtedly taken over. "Lucifer stopped by last night after you went off to your hot lady orgy."

"First off, jealousy doesn't look good on you, brother. Second, I'm not ok with you calling up your boyfriend to sneak in your bedroom window the second I leave." Dean reached over to smack Sam's leg, pulling his attention over so that they could make brief and disapproving eye contact. "Dude raises so many red flags it's not even funny. I can't tell you how to live your life, but at least try not to be alone with the guy if you can help it. Not until you've got sense enough to not make him any and every promise he offers you."

"He literally brought you back from the dead less than forty-eight hours ago. You could give him a little credit."

"Yeah, whatever."

"Don't whatever it. You were dead."

"And you promised him a something that you're refusing to tell me about, and then he shows up and starts writing love letters on your cast."

"It's not a love letter." Sam looked down at the very careful script, at the beautifully perfect symbols and the very lopsided heart beside them. "It's apparently a threat to skin anyone who messes with me."

"How sweet of him."

"You've threatened to rip out people's lungs for the very same reason." He felt a need to point out. "You don't get to get judgy on this one."

Dean made a face and kept his eyes on the road, frowning and not speaking again until the tape deck clicked and grew silent as it switched from side A to B. "You know it's driving me crazy that you promised him something you don't want to talk to me about. My brain is giving me all kinds of bad suggestions what it is that the devil wants from you. You told me that the son of a bitch is getting your body once you kick the bucket- but you won't tell me about this. So how bad is it?"

"I told you, it's not bad." Sam picked at the edge of his cast with a thumb, little dry flecks of plaster coming loose like sand. "It's just stupid."

"Yeah, I believe it's stupid. I just don't like the idea of your little deals coming up to bite us in the ass later on."

"You- you ever heard about crossroad deals with demons?"

"Like Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil to play the blues kind of crossroad deals?"

"Just like that, yeah." It wouldn't be a stretch to say that Sam loved his brother a little extra at times like this. "Well when I was getting that demon killing knife and everything a few months back, I made a deal with the devil in that normal crossroad kind of way."

"You promised he could have you when you were dead." Dean knew this part.

"Well, we sealed the deal like you traditionally do."

Dean's frown deepened until his eyes became nothing more than seaglass green slits. "Like signing your name in blood, or what?"

"A kiss actually." Sam had turned his face back towards the window so he could only guess what the silence from his brother meant in that moment. "It's not as weird as it sounds. It's why people kiss at weddings. Kissing symbolises the exchange of souls."

Dean still didn't say anything.

Sam still didn't look away from the green signs that told them how many miles until the next exit. He watched the billboards for McDonalds and a local car insurance company as they sped past. "We think it's something about me being an official 'vessel' or whatever to him, but there's this standing too close to a powerline kind of buzz when we touch and he got all weird about it and wanted a second kiss. I told him to fuck off… but a few months later there you were in a hospital bed and all the doctors were telling me was that you weren't looking good. I didn't know what else to offer him."

"You telling me that you traded me for a kiss?"

The laughter in his brother's voice pulled Sam away from his examination of the urban scenery. "Shut up. You're alive and I'm not sorry."

"You are so gay for Satan. Oh my god, Sammy, how do you live with yourself? I mean, we didn't grow up going to church or anything, but this has got to be setting off all kinds of alarms for you, right?"

"He told me I could pay him back whenever I felt ready to." The fact that Sam was defending Lucifer, yet again, was almost definitely one of those alarms that Dean was so sure he should be aware of. "I know what he is, and what he's supposed to be- all the stories and everything. But I think it's got something to do with him being this ancient sort of creature from before time. He's different. He's really… respectful under all the creepy weird vibes and sarcastic remarks."

And raising the bar for the most childish thing that he'd done since they were teens, Dean started singing, "Sam and Satan sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-"

"You're such a jerk."

" _Bitch_ -N-G." Dean interjected into his own lyrics before devolving into sloppy chuckles.

"I'm glad you're taking this so well."

"You should have kept your little deal to yourself, man. I'm never going to let you live this one down." Words that were nothing close to comfort. "In a way I'm kind of proud to be your brother though. Apparently those lips of yours are fine enough that the devil himself is willing to get off his ass and perform miracles just for a chance to get at them one more time."

Sam hadn't looked at it that way.

He highly doubted that Lucifer would either.

But he let Dean get a good laugh out of it.

After all, it never felt like there were ever enough reasons for them to laugh, and it was good to take whatever they could get.


	12. Chapter 12

If anyone had asked Sam to guess how he'd end up spending his Wednesday night, even if he'd had the front and back of a page to write on, 'laying in the grass and watching fireflies while wondering if the deafness from standing too close to the explosion would be permanent' would not have made his list.

Distantly he was aware of the fact that Dean was lying within arm's reach over to his left, their heads close together and their bodies splayed in opposing directions. His brother had spent nearly a whole minute mutely shouting and checking Sam over for broken bones, before just collapsing beside him in relief and exhaustion. They were both breathing. They were both alive. All fingers and toes seemed to be accounted for.

And the utter silence had given way to a dull ringing, so that was probably a good sign.

The red clay on Sam's hands looked too much like blood as the sun was dipping below the trees and casting long and confusing shadows. Both Winchesters undoubtedly looked half dead, which was fitting seeing as they were sprawled out between low and well aged gravestones. He idly wished that there was enough light left for him to read the epitaph closest to him, if only so that he could know the name of the person he was sharing this little spot of dirt with.

Elloree, South Carolina was hardly even a town - but that's where the supposed bear attack had taken place. It was mostly just little vacation homes huddled around a small lake, a few little fish and bait shops and a whitewashed church. There had been nothing special about the crime scene. It looked like every other little cottage in the long line― other than the police tape still over the door.

There had been no stink of sulfur, no claw marks on doors or windows, no obvious sign of a hex, no history of anything exciting having ever taken place in the house, much less on the lake―other than an impressively sized trout that had been caught by a fisherman back in the mid 80s that had made local papers.

The lack of any other direction to look in, and not being willing to just blame a bear, sent the boys out talking to the victim's wife.

It wasn't a hard jump to assume that a wife, whose husband had been cheating on her, might look for some sort of retribution. Her name was Sarah. She was very small. Very Jewish. Very happy that her son of a bitch husband had been torn to pieces. And Dean had been a little too obvious with his flirting.

Flirting that had in no way kept Sarah from sending a golem made of vengeance and clay to the cabin that the Winchesters were squatting in since they came to town. Bullets and salt and silver and iron had been less than small mountain of earth not even batting one of it's small smooth pebble eyes as the hunters did their best.

They'd run.

Not that running away felt like the best solution, but at the time it was all they had. The slowness of the creature was the only weakness that the brothers had been able to exploit.

They'd driven two towns over to try and catch their breath and to form a plan. Dean had been grumpy and not the most helpful with strategizing. Sore from his bruised ribs and his thoughts a bit scrambled by what was most likely a mild concussion from being thrown into not one, not two, but three different walls.

A few hours of research and neither of them had been able to come up with a single good idea.

A bad idea, yes.

A Good idea, no.

Plastic explosives were never, ever a good idea.

Sam didn't even want to know how long Dean had been keeping explosives packed into a sturdy little box in the trunk of the car.

Dean had come up with half a pound of C4, There wasn't much to tell after that.

Golem's were made of cemetery dirt, so the boys had gone to the only cemetery in Elloree, and waited. Sarah came like they'd hoped that she would, and the golem that she made to kill them went up with a very literal bang. If there had been anything around the graveyard other than trees and the distant steeple of the church poking above the foliage than surely someone would have worried what the concussive, bone rattling, sound had been.

Just as the ringing had reached an almost painful decibel, scratching and wounding the battered inside of Sam's skull, a hand slipped over his shoulder. Meaning to push his brother off with a soft _pat pat_ on conformation that he was still alive and well, Sam reached back and gave the wrist a light squeeze. The dip of his palm suddenly felt like he was cupping a pocket of lightning. Very mild lightning. His fingertips brushing along a live wire.

He had more proof than he needed that it wasn't Dean holding onto his shoulder so very carefully, but Sam still turned his head to the right to see the unmistakable moonpale curve of Lucifer's face.

The devil was laying in the grass beside him, a look of concern and curiosity tempering his smile. His lips moved but it was all white noise.

"I can't hear anything," Sam thought that he managed to say. " 'm probably deaf. I won't miss your bad jokes."

Lucifer showed a bit of teeth in a way that could have been mistaken for a grin. He mouthed more words that meant nothing, as he moved his hand from Sam's shoulder up to his cheek, then forehead, brushing hair and grit from his eyes. It was obvious that the devil was laughing at Sam, teasing him. The actual words were irrelevant - their meaning clear enough.

"Knock it off." He pushed the man's hand away from his hair, too tired and sore to be interested in whatever nonsense was being offered to him.

The devil kept talking though, undaunted, from the tilt of his head and the small pauses it was likely that he was asking questions and expecting some kind of answer.

Sam had none to offer, and was tempted to just close his eyes and ignore the world - but he thought better of it by the way that Lucifer sat up on an elbow and pointed into the night with a scowl. Uneasily, Sam sat up too, only to see something that he didn't understand. There was a fourth person out here in the growing dark, back out among the headstones.

It was almost definitely Sarah, and by the rapidly forming mound of dirt beside her it was apparent that she was not daunted by the Winchesters blowing her last golem to tiny bits.

"For fuck's sake," the words formed in Sam's mouth and he reached over to his brother and shook him from his almost peaceful rest.

Dean's eyes came open and almost instantly honed in on the man sitting on Sam's far side, launching himself into a clearly unpleasant greeting that was followed by short, slipped words that didn't need any kind of translation.

"Hey, um, I think Sarah jimmied out of her ropes." Sam wasn't sure if his brother was suffering from the same deafening ringing that he was drowning in. It was like living in a church bell and it could stop any time now and that would be great. He watched with mild annoyance and distress as his brother continued to mutely yell at Satan.

There wasn't time for Dean to work this animosity out of his system though. They had bigger problems than the devil showing up uninvited.

It was obvious that the other man was as deaf as he was; and Sam was forced to resort to snapping his fingers and then waving his hand in his brother's face before gesturing to the distantly rising monster that was not nearly far enough away.

Though the hunters made an attempt to stumble to their feet, Lucifer was faster. He made calming gesture with his hands like a lion tamer in an old timey circus, soothing the brothers and reassuring them as best as he could manage without audible words. He left them, walking so smoothly over the grass, waltzing around gravestones to music only he could hear.

It was fascinating to watch the ease at which the devil managed to do what the Winchesters had struggled so hard with. One hand touched Sarah's head and she crumpled. The same hand moved to the half formed golem and it dissolved like a sugar cube in water.

Words were wasted between them, but the impressed and pleased nod from Dean said plenty. Sam felt the same way.

By the time that the three of them, plus one unconscious lady, made it back to the cabin they were hiding out in Sam could actually kind of hear again. Things were muffled like his ears were stuffed with cotton, all sounds distant like heard from behind closed doors- but it was better than the alternative.

It came with a downside though. It meant hearing all those soft whispers from Lucifer as they walked from the car to the house, Sam catching the door for Dean who had his arms full of a hundred pounds worth of scorned woman.

"Why are we keeping her, Sam?" The devil leaned close, keeping practically on Sam's heels. "I didn't know you and your brother took adorable little prizes like this. It's weird and charming and very unexpected."

Sam closed the door behind them and made room on the couch for their guest. They'd been lucky enough to find one of the lake houses that wasn't currently being rented. All nice and furnished and perfectly comfortably and free for their use. So much better than a hotel - though the clayman attack a few hours ago had left one broken back door and dusty smears of clay over the wooden floors and patterned rugs.

"If we're going to eat her then I call a leg," he peered around Sam's shoulder to watch Dean placing the woman down safe and sound (though her hands were tied). "I'm a dark meat kind of man―"

Sam wondered how long this slightly lunatic rambling had been going on, seeing as he'd done his best not to look at Lucifer while they were all in the car. "We're not eating her, and we're not keeping her."

Startled but amused, Lucifer flashed Sam one of his crooked little smiles that made his eyes so bright. "How long have you been able to hear me?"

"...not long enough to know if you're joking or not about cannibalising Sarah."

"Oh, does that mean that you missed the part in the car when I was singing to you?" A pout twisted his grin, but the laughter was still open on his face. "I can be talked into an encor if you ask real nicely."

Despite some mild curiosity as to what song this terrible man might have seen fit to sing to him, Sam knew that he would not be asking for a repeat performance.

"So why exactly are we keeping the lady who was making a monster to crush you and your very filthy brother?"

" _We_ aren't keeping her." There wasn't a ' _we_ ' here. Not one that involved the devil at least. "She made a golem to kill her husband. Not exactly any evidence there that we can just hand over to the local police."

"So we brought her back here to… kill her?"

"No!" Frustration made Sam's shoulders tight. It was too long and too difficult of a day to really worry about whether or not Lucifer was still joking or not.

"We're going to _talk_ to her," Dean butted in, apparently joining them on this side of hearing. "Isn't that right, Sam?" The mocking tone was a little too clear in his big brother's voice.

It wasn't fair that Sam was the only reasonable person in the room.

"Look, yes she tried to kill us, but―"

"Twice." Dean pointed out, rubbing the side of his head like trying to shake water from an ear. "She tried to kill us twice."

"― _but,_ but that doesn't mean that we're going to kill her."

"No. Of course not." Dean rolled his eyes and winced as he shrugged out of his jacket. "We just point out that she was being a bit naughty, get an apology, and make her promise that she won't summon any more dirt monsters to hurt anyone."

"That's a terrible plan, Sam. Even for a human that's a terrible plan - and I have very low expectations here." Lucifer lectured softly, still hovering beside the younger hunter, but peering at the unconscious body on the couch.

"That's not what we're doing." Being reasonable shouldn't be so difficult. "We need to talk to her. See if we can't get her to go to the police and confess."

If Dean rolled his eyes any harder he was going to hurt himself. "Yeah, why wouldn't she want to turn herself in?"

"She's just human, Dean." Sam hated that he had to point this out. "We're not going to kill her."

"Yeah well, we're not going to get her to do much of anything with her being all unconscious and hogtied," and Dean sat himself down on the recliner beside the window, leaving dark smears of clay over the cushions, "compliments of your boyfriend. Thanks for that by the way, Satan. You could have showed up and melted that monster of hers hours ago, but better late than never."

"Did you ask me to come earlier? No."

"Did anyone ask you to come when you did?" Dean started working his hands together, scraping off the dried clay. "No. But you butt your nose in places you weren't invited whenever you damn feel like it; so you should at least start to work on your timing."

Lucifer looked unimpressed by the insults, which seemed to be one of his only two responses to teasing. "Two such brave strong hunters as yourselves, I'd hate to emasculate you boys by always stepping in and saving the day. What would all the other other hunters say?"

"They'd say good job having Satan in your back pocket." Dean offered with a hint of teeth.

Sam moved between the two before their banter could go much further south. Breaking their line of sight seemed to help, if Lucifer's easy and sudden smile was any indication.

"Luci, since you knocked her out do we need you to wake her up too. Or are we just…?"

"I mean, I _can_ wake her, if you like to have your ladies alive before you kill them?"

"Oh my god." Sam hissed under his breath. It was rough being in the room with two borderline sociopaths. "We're not going to kill her."

"Pity." Lucifer honestly seemed disappointed that there wasn't going to be some kind of murder tonight. But he snapped his fingers at Sarah―not like a hypnotist waking a volunteer from the audience, but like a man with very little patience trying to get someone's attention―and she came awake with a start.

Waking up with your hands tied, in a strange place, surrounded by two men that you'd tried to kill and one complete stranger, was probably a fairly terrifying way for anyone to wake up. Especially for such a small and delicate sort of woman like Sarah was. If she felt any kind of fear though she hid it well.

"Bastards." She ground out the words through her teeth. "You bastards."

"Yeah, Sammy. She sounds super reasonable and ready to apologise for killing her husband." Dean ran a hand through his hair and made it obvious that he wasn't going to be much help.

"That son of a bitch got what he deserved." She struggled, hands tied from wrists to elbows, but her feet free enough to kick and get her the leverage she needed to move from laying to sitting up. She had a wild sort of look to her, eyes flat and cold, hair a mess, and her makeup slightly smudged. "And if I could bring him back I would do it again."

Sam didn't know what he was hoping for here. Things got complicated when the 'monster' was a human. Witches and average murderers were so much harder to deal with than proper things that went bump in the night. At least for the younger hunter. Dean didn't have as many stipulations.

"He swore to me he wouldn't do it again," Sarah made her excuse. Rationalised. As if she expected one of the men in the room to take her side. "We- we have a daughter the same age as that kid he was screwing. How am I supposed to tell my baby that her dad was cheating on us with a sixteen year old?"

Dean wasn't one to be sympathetic in these sorts of situations though. "How are you supposed to tell your baby that you made a monster to beat her father to death?"

"I'm not apologising to a bunch of hunters." She spat. "You can't come in with some moral high ground and expect me to feel bad about doing exactly the same thing that you do."

Sam was taken aback. When he and Dean had first spoken to her a few days ago they'd introduced themselves as life insurance claim adjusters here to clear up a few things about her husband's unexpected death. Granted, they weren't the most believable insurance adjusters, but he also liked to think that they didn't look like hunters either. Which meant that Sarah had met people like them before - and that's wasn't a great sign.

"Oh honey. We don't summon monsters." As much as Dean was against this conversation, and should have been at least slightly concerned about the turn it was taking, he seemed happy enough to keep up the bad-cop routine.

"No. You kill monsters. That's what I did." No apology in her.

The brothers had talked to the 'mistress' when they'd first got to town. She'd been very pretty and very young for the man that she'd been sleeping with.

And maybe Sarah didn't need to apologize.

Maybe she'd been a little justified.

Sam could very easily see her side of it.

That was one of the complications that came along when they had to deal with humans.

Another, but very unexpected, complication followed.

Sarah stared Dean straight in the eyes and began to speak in a language that Sam didn't recognise.

"The fuck is she―" the older Winchester glanced at Sam, confused and more confused as to what was going on. "What is saying to me?"

Sam could only shrug and turn to Lucifer who was less than helpful.

"What?" He looked away from his casual study of a landscape painting on the far wall, seeming to just notice the woman on the couch who was speaking fast and in rough words. "She doesn't seem to like you boys' plan any more than I did."

"Do I―?" Dean took a step closer to the woman on the couch and raised a hand like he meant to strike her, but he hesitated, also watching Lucifer for some kind of direction.

"I'm not your mom," the Devil shrugged. "You want to belt the woman across the mouth that's your business - but you've got a bit of an unfair advantage and I will silently judge you for it."

"I mean, is she making another monster?" Dean looked so uncertain as the small woman continued her strange unbroken stream of words with that hard look in her eyes.

Lucifer cocked his head to one side, an owl like movement as he studied Sarah. "Those aren't real words. They're a little like Aramaic and little old Hebrew, matching nouns, mostly nonsense though. I think that she just doesn't like you boys."

"Wow. Thanks, Satan." Dean eased away from the couch, hesitation making the small movements stiff. "Real helpful. Glad we had you here to translate."

It was a quiet testament to the overwhelming depths to the hole that Sam had been digging for himself that he stepped in to defended Lucifer. "Give him a break, Dean. He melted the monster that we couldn't take out with explosives―"

"You're welcome by the way." The devil was many things, but humble or modest he was not. He looked like he wanted to say more, but his spine suddenly stiffened and he turned to look at Sarah with this blank and cold expression.

She grinned at him.

At all the men that were towering over here.

No fear in the woman.

But she was apparently capable of summoning monsters capable of pulling people into little pieces, so maybe she had her reasons to feel a bit more confident in these sorts of situations.

Her eyes flooded with a soft amber color and for a moment Sam's gut tightened with memories of the yellow eyed demon that they'd killed months back. There was a whiff of sulfur and that did nothing to ease the nervous sort of violence curling in him and making his palms itch.

" _Oh my_ ," Sarah showed too much teeth as she spoke, her tone heavy and very different from moments before. " _I had no idea that there were any hunters out here idiot enough to―"_ those animal eyes of hers widened as she seemed to recognise the blond man who was still lingering near to the walls. " _Master… Lucifer, is it really you?"_

There was no emotion on the devil's face and even less than that in his words as he spoke. "Ansky, you're just letting humans summon you like this now?"

" _I've been bound to their family for centuries… Sir."_ There was a strange mix of awe and horror on the thing wearing Sarah's face. " _You're free from the cage. You made it out. Everyone will be so―"_

Whatever 'everyone' was going to be feeling had to remain a mystery though, seeing as Lucifer raised a hand like he was expecting a high-five from the air, and then Sarah exploded.

It would have been more disturbing if Sam had been able to really process what had happened.

Blood and viscera suddenly painted the walls and ceiling and furniture.

It was hot and wet and he'd had been standing far too close to the couch because when he shakily raised a hand to wipe blood from his face he distinctly felt small shards of bone dislodged from his hair and hit the carpet with muted little sounds.

"Son of a fucking bitch," Dean found his words first, taking a deep breath and spitting on the floor before continuing his short tirade. "You got to warn a guy if you're going to― _fuck ―_ my mouth was open and everything, man."

"You… you killed her." Sam's concerns leaned in a different direction.

Lucifer turned slowly to the younger hunter, and that coldness hadn't left his face, his bloodied face. "I didn't have much of a choice. Ansky was one of my generals during the first war - and there he was, being summoned like a lap dog. This is what happens when there's no one with sense enough to rule left in charge down there."

Adrenaline was singing through Sam, making the red of the blood too vibrant. The sounds and scents coming in off the lake too strong as they drifted in through the broken back door and mixed nauseatingly with the mess in the room. "You didn't have to blow them up!"

"He would have returned to Hell and told everyone I was free." If he even noticed the blood dripping from his chin made no sign of it. "I like my privacy."

Chest tight, Sam felt like he needed to catch his breath. "You didn't have to kill Sarah too."

With a shrug, Lucifer turned back to the painting on the wall. "You said she killed her husband. Call this karma if it makes you feel better."

"She had a teenage daughter."

"...and?"

It's not like Sam expected the devil to be saintly. He wasn't that stupid or hopeful. But it still crippled something inside of him to have that level of indifference flaunted in front of him.

It might have been because Dean knew Sam's own mind better than he did at times. That some kind of big brotherly instinct just turned on automatically when he saw the slightest shift in his Sam. "Come on, go get cleaned up and let's get out of here."

Or maybe it was just coincidence.

Either way, Sam was quietly grateful for an easy out.

Ignoring the devil was easy - seeing as there was nothing else that Sam would rather be doing in that moment. He washed up quickly, doing his best not to dwell on the molar he found in the folds of his shirt collar, and getting into clean clothes. Dean did much of the same, the two of them going through the familiar movements without wasted words. It was grim work but fast, and their very incriminating clothes got tossed into the fireplace on their way out the door.

They were leaving behind a mess, but that wasn't abnormal after a hunt. Especially not a hunt that had gone as sideways as this one had. The only consolation seem to be that there was no one left to be summoning up clay monsters, and that Lucifer was no longer haunting the bloodied room. He'd vanished without much warning, and neither Winchester commented on it.

The windows of the Impala almost instantly started to fog on the edges as Dean started up the car. Muggy but chill night coming in the passenger window that Sam was quickly rolling down. There wasn't enough air to clear his head though.

It took putting about eighty miles of bleak night highway between them and Elloree for the iron weight in his gut to lift.

"Dean," the wind was slapping his freshly cleaned hair against his right cheek, leaving him partially deaf in one ear- so all in all his night hadn't really improved all that much, "tell me you were going to want to kill her anyways."

For half a moment, his big brother took his eyes from the road. Just long enough to shoot Sam a confused expression."I like to pretend that we're good guys, Sammy. I like to think that there was a way out that wasn't putting a bullet between her eyes… or you know, your boyfriend painting the wall with her."

And words of comfort those were not.

"Damn it, Dean," Sam internalised the last of that thought, _he's not my boyfriend_.

"Look, man, she killed her husband." The muscle in his jaw jumped as Dean chewed at the inside of his cheek. "Apparently her family had some pact with a demon - or, fuck, I don't know. But she was bad news, Sammy. You can't deny that she would have killed us if she had the chance."

Probably.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Life was made of uncertainties like that.

.:.

It's not like they could just swing into the nearest hospital and get Sam a replacement cast that wasn't caked in rust colored dirt, or fractured in long spiderweb crackles, or stained with unmistakable smears of dried blood. Which was a shame. A hospital might have been willing to prescribe some kind of pain killers that would have helped take the edge off the ache that kept Sam sullen and irritable.

Dean was a phenomenal big brother though. Brother and mother and doctor all rolled into one big old ball of 'I told you so'. They checked into a motel out in Tennessee, and despite it being nearly four in the morning, Dean set Sam up with a bottle of cheap whiskey and left to collect 'supplies'.

The hard liquor burned his throat and made his stomach lurch, but Sam eased himself into the bottle and let it numb the throbbing pain that came from broken bones and countless bruises and scrapes.

He'd had worse nights.

He'd had worse hunts.

Inevitably he'd have worse ones as the years would stretch on.

But this one would stick with him. He wasn't likely to shake the images of that room covered in the remains of a very small and very angry woman and the devil standing idly by without an ounce of apology.

Steadying the whiskey between his knees, Sam used his good hand to undo the laces of his boots before kicking them to the floor. He eased into one of the room's queen beds and did his best to not think about everything that his mind seemed so very determined to dwell on.

He must have fallen asleep because he never heard the Impala roll in over the loose gravel of the parking lot. Never heard the door open. Didn't even knowingly close his eyes―but someone was lightly pawing at an ankle and shaking him awake.

The room was bleary in alcohol and the light of the single bedside lamp.

Sam shifted his weight, fumbling the mostly empty bottle of Jack over to the bedside table before running a hand over his eyes and trying to pull the world into focus. "Hey, did you… Lucifer, why are you here?"

The devil was standing beside the bed, spotless clothes and that easy, gentle look softening the winter sky color of his eyes. "I know I told you that Lucifer is my favorite name, but I'd be lying if I said hearing you call me Luci makes my little black heart go pitter pat."

"I don't want to do this."

"Do what?"

"Any of this." Sam wished that he could clarify a bit better, but his head was still swimming in whiskey. He felt oddly very small and lost, like a boat that had drifted far from its moorings, and not at all like a giant of a man on a motel bed with floral print blankets that hadn't been attractive since the late seventies. "Whatever you're here for, I don't want it."

"I wanted to check on you - so I did. But you're not usually so roughed up; so liquored up. It beared an actual conversation I thought."

"I don't wanna talk to you." Even to his own ears, Sam sounded like a sullen child.

A narrowing kind of confusion darkened the lines on Lucifer's face. He idly toyed with the hem of Sam's jeans. "Are you mad at me?"

If it wasn't for the way that the whiskey had smoothed all his rough edges, Sam probably would have been able to keep it together. Instead he laughed, a dark ugly thing clawing up from a place deep down that he hadn't known he had.

One eyebrow inched up. "That would be a _yes_."

"You don' care how anyone other than you feels. Don't― don't try to pretend to me that you're gettin' all worried." Sam's words slurred on the edges and stumbled over themselves and it was more of a mess than he wanted to acknowledge.

"It's too easy for me to forget that you're just human sometimes," the bed dipped under the weight of the devil as he sat himself down beside Sam's feet, "and you're bound to get all _sensitive_ about things."

"Sensitive?"

There was a tiny roll of his eyes, but oddly he didn't tease Sam about repeating him for once.

"This isn't me being a sensitive lil' human." Sam pushed himself to a more upright sort of position like better posture would somehow make the other man listen to him. "You killed a woman, right in front of me,"

"Is that all?"

"Fuck you, you spooky son of a bitch."

"Was she or was she not trying to kill you and your brother? I believe I did you both a favor."

And there was no doubt in Sam's mind that the devil actually believed what he was saying. "You did yourself a favor by killing her and whatever was in her. It had nothin' to do with Dean an me."

"Call it a two-for-one deal. Everyone got out just fine."

"Yeah, everyone except the woman you popped like a birthday balloon."

"Would you prefer I stop helping you, Samuel?" It was a little unnerving to watch the way that no matter how mad or frustrated Sam got with him, the devil only tilted his head or raised an eyebrow. Curious but not offended in the slightest. "You don't need to get so upset about this. You don't owe me for tonight. That wasn't a trade - and by that look on your face that says you're stabbing me in your mind, I'm guessing that that wasn't the right thing to say."

Even drunk, Sam knew he was wearing what Dean always referred to as his 'bitch face'. He wasn't going to apologize for it. "We're not friends. I don't want favors from you."

"Would you rather owe me for tonight?" Lucifer kept rubbing the edge of Sam's jeans between his thumb and forefinger. "Because I'd say that your bartab is already getting to be a bit more than you can handle."

Sam just shook his head, squaring his shoulder off against the swimming sort of feeling that still kept his head a disorganised and angry place.

"A body, and then a kiss, and I really don't think you can deal with much more than that, Sam."

It wasn't the most stupid thing that he'd done in the past few weeks, and he certainly could one-up himself if given the chance. He surged forward, grabbing a messy handful of the devil's shirt and closed the short distance between them. It was a rough kiss, if it even qualified as one at all.

A soft sound battered itself against Sam's lips, something from Lucifer that was halfway between a hum and a whimper and the hunter swallowed it down. He sat back, rattling the bed's headboard as he pushed the other man away with something very much like anger. "Just a body. I don't owe you anything else."

"H-how are you," Lucifer's eyes were closed, his lashes pale lines over the curve of his cheeks that possibly had a touch too much color to them, "how are you not ass over teakettle for that feeling?"

If Sam got a little distracted watching the uneven line of the other man's mouth, or felt his own thoughts going a bit astray when he started to wonder if he could draw that same sound out of the devil a second time - well, it was hardly his own fault. Dean, after all, had supplied him with the booze.

"I don't like it," which wasn't true. "It's like standing too close to power lines, except it's under my skin," which was very true.

Lucifer suddenly laughed, a confused, almost panicked sort of unwilling sound that he cut off by rubbing his hands over his face and clearing his throat. "Sam, I―"

Familiar headlights cut through the room's flimsy curtains, the crunch of gravel announcing that they weren't alone. Dean was back, and that meant a bunch of good and bad things all together.

"Even if you would rather I didn't, I'll still come help if you call for me." He reached out like he wanted to pat Sam's leg again, but for some reason through better of it and stood. "Free of charge."

"I don't want your help."

"Want and need are sometimes very different things," he shrugged. "And as long as you promise just to keep it between the two of us, I'll let you in on a little secret."

Sam didn't want a secret between them.

But Lucier smiled, a crooked little thing. "I find myself at a weird place where I kind of want to help keep you alive." He winked and he was gone with that thunderous sound of flapping wings.

The motel room opened and Sam was left trying to collect himself in a mad sort of scramble like a deck of dropped cards.

"Hey, brother. You still conscious?" Dean grinned, though his eyes relayed a heavy need for sleep. "I've got the cure for you right here." He set down a plastic grocery bag before pulling from his jacket pocket a little brown and white prescription bottle.

He tossed the pills to his invalid brother on the bed and Sam majestically didn't catch it. Awkwardly the younger Winchester fumbled the bottle up of the blankets and read the label.

' _Sameulson, Lora- 600mg Narco- Take one by mouth every six hours as needed_ '

"You stole someone's pills?"

"Anything for my baby brother." He grinned, rifling through his bag and pulling out a package of beef jerky and a handful of Sharpies. "Take your pills, eat some, and let me at that nasty cast of yours."

Sam did as he was told, chewing on a dry little hunk of meat while watching Dean set to work scribbling over the stains of his cast. It was hard to say if it was the marker fumes or the painkillers that hit him harder; his eyes watering a bit and his body very quickly feeling like it belonged to someone else.

"You ok up there, Sammy?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm alright."

The dubious look that Dean shot him said that he wasn't buying it, but they'd had a long night and it was obvious that he wasn't interested in a long conversation to match. "Give me one of those happy pills, and I'll finish putting a fresh coat of paint on ya in the morning."

"It's already morning." Sam may have done his best to hide a smile as he clumsily wrestled with the childproof cap before digging out one of the little white pills for his brother.

"You've always got to be right, don't you?" Dean laughed, and being the heathen that he was, bit the pill in half, tossing the part he wasn't swallowing down onto the nightstand. "Sadly we can't both get loopy on pills, one of us has to keep a clear head."

Between the two of them, Dean was probably more deserving of some deep sleep. He'd definitely been on the receiving end of more than half of the night's violence - but that wasn't how the two of them worked, and Sam was already too groggy to argue.

The light went out, and still fully dressed and on top of the covers, Sam settled down. His thoughts fought against the pull of the pills and liquor though. Confusing thoughts about the man who wasn't in the room with them. Thoughts that he really, really didn't want to have.


	13. Chapter 13

People were dying. Which sounded a lot more dramatic that it needed to. Sam supposed that there were literally always people dying. It was just that sometimes death came naturally, old age, sickness, drugs, plane crashes. And some deaths were murders committed by a woman out in Rhode Island who claimed to have had divine visions and was killing in the name of God. That was the sort of thing that got the Winchesters to stand up and take notice. Crazies and holy wars aside, it just wasn't all that often that people had such specific delusions.

Sam had gone into the local psychiatric facility, dressed as a night nurse, to talk to the holy murderer who'd been incarcerated there. She'd been a woman utterly at peace with the world. Relaxed and calm, and that might have just been whatever meds they had her on, but she told him all about the Angel that had spoken to her. The Angel that had come down and told her who to kill. She spoke of the brilliant light and the warmth and the feeling of peace―and Sam had done a good job at not laughing.

It wasn't so much that he didn't believe her, as it was that he was weighing her experience against his own and frankly he felt as though he'd been cheated.

He thanked her for her time, though he had his doubts that she'd actually been all that aware of him through her joyous rapture, and went back to the motel.

Between cleaning their guns Dean dutifully listened to the story that Sam had collected. He nodded along and asked questions where he was supposed to, and then he just got quiet, chewing on the inside of his cheek while he reassembled a very well used deer rifle.

"What I really want to say here is that the idea of angels making a hit list is eight kinds of crazy," he glanced up at Sam and his tone of voice said 'smile' even if the slant of his mouth didn't. "But instead I'm going to ask if you called up your boyfriend to see if he knows anything about this."

It had been nearly three full months since the golem in South Carolina. That meant that it had been nearly a quarter of a year since Sam had laid eyes on the devil―not that he was counting or anything.

"I don't have a boyfriend, Dean."

"You know who I'm talking about. Your little slice of heaven," he clarified rather needlessly, "the adorable little prince of darkness that you keep on retainer."

There was probably some sort of ammunition in there that Sam could fire back considering he'd never once called the devil 'adorable'. That was all on Dean.

"No, I didn't call Satan," because Sam was trying to stay focused here and not start an argument. "This has nothing to do with him."

"Supposedly he's an angel. We've got people saying they're seeing angels. Really seems like what's going on here is more his thing than ours."

"I'd rather not call him if it's all the same."

"Did you two love birds have a fight?" Dean raised an eyebrow and for the first time since Sam had come back there was a hint of a grin in there somewhere. "Is that why we haven't seen his mug around in a while?"

"No." He dug into his bag and got out a change of clothes, ready to be out of the scrubs that he'd worn to the psychiatric hospital.

"You still pissed at him for blowing up that chick?"

A sigh rattled around in Sam's chest as he went into the bathroom to change and flatly ignored the question being put to him.

"Because you've got to move the fuck on, man." Dean was yelling after him, probably not loud enough for their neighbors to hear, but enough that it carried through the closed door between them. "What do you think happened to the guy that the yellow eyed demon was wearing when Dad got a hold of him? You wanna make it more personal, think about how many witches we've ganked over the years. Yeah it's sucks, but it's not like she was a good guy or anything. Cut your losses. Hell, call it a win for the good guys."

Sam came back into the room, cramming the scrubs down into the bottom of his bag. "I think we need to look into our killer's background. See if she was somehow… I don't know, brainwashed or something."

"Brainwashed?"

"Or hexed or drugged or anything like that. Dean you didn't talk to her. She was," Sam struggled to think of the right word, "she was euphoric. She honestly believed that she was doing the Lord's work."

"Do we want to consider that maybe she actually is?" Dean started laughing before Sam could get any kind of answer out. "Yeah, ok. You want to tone down the bitch face there, Sammy. You could just say 'no'."

He felt no need to soften the look he was giving his big brother. "Having seen what an angel can do, I just don't really think that one would waste the time getting a human's help."

"So we don't call the only angel that we know to actually come look at this for us," Dean rolled his eyes up to the water stained ceiling, "instead were going to…"

Sam didn't know the next best thing, but he was damn sure that he could come up with something better than summoning Satan.

Looking for leads and running out of options brought the brothers to the houses of the victims.

Interestingly enough those houses lead the brothers to bodies in basements and internet histories that would have made Sam call the cops if the person who'd done the browsing and downloading hadn't already been so very dead.

"So the sons of bitches sort of had it coming." Dean shrugged as he rifled through the things on the dead man's desk. "Maybe the crazies had the right idea. Sort of like doing a public service by offing these creeps."

"You think that they somehow knew about the stalking and the bodies and the kiddie porn?" Sam still felt a little sick about that last one. He'd shut down the laptop on the desk as soon as he realised what he'd been looking at, but he hadn't quite been able to shake the weirdly comforting feeling that the man who owned this computer had been shot in the face.

"Not saying that it was an angel," Dean picked up a little half page flier for a Saturday night prayer meeting and fluttered it in Sam's direction. "But the trigger happy, born again nut job and the stiffs all went to the same church―so that might be something worth looking into."

Though he couldn't tell Dean often enough, Sam loved that he wasn't always the smart one. He loved that quiet feeling of pride that he got when his big brother so easily laid out pieces of a puzzle that Sam hadn't even known they were putting together.

But when Dean did things like suggest that they dress like priests so they could get into the church and ask questions without raising any eyebrows, it was easy for Sam bite back the compliments.

Father Reynolds was a good man who might have overshared a bit too much about what was going on with his parishioners. The brothers got the information that they came for almost too easily. Not too long ago a priest named Father Gregory Thomas had been gunned down on the front steps of the church and the first moment that they were left alone while Reynolds went to go speak with a member of his congregation, Dean didn't hesitate to lean into Sam, whispering, "Sounds like we've got us a ghost."

"Not necessarily."

"Our ex-priest would have known the victims' dirty little secrets through confessional, and he comes back from the dead to punish the sons of bitches." He fidgeted with the stiff white collar. "So you and me take out Casper the not so friendly ghost and we can be back on the road by dinner time."

Sam was about to point out that they still needed to find out where the priest had been buried and then get their hands on the body so they could burn it― and those were tasks that were rarely as easy as they should be.

"Hey, I'm gunna go see where the Padre was put to rest and then we can get back into some normal clothes."

"Yeah," Sam lingered in the back of the chapel, watching his big brother make it almost all the way to the little office in the back that Father Reynolds had stepped into. Unfortunately, Dean was stopped half way there by a rather lovely and feminine church goer who had been lighting candles. She smiled up at Dean and asked him soft questions that didn't make it to the back of the room for Sam to decode. All he knew was that as he stood there with his restless hands holding onto the back of a pew, he watched his brother flash him a matchstick grin before sitting down in the front set of seats, too close to the young woman who undoubtedly had slightly less than holy things on her mind by the way she was giggling and grinning up at Dean.

Sam wished that he was positive that his brother wouldn't do anything too compromising. They were, after all, dressed as priests and in a church. If there was any tact at all in Dean then he'd keep it together.

Reluctantly Sam sat himself down, figuring that he could wait a few minutes before breaking things up. It's not like they were in a rush, and Dean was liable to be pissy if Sam got between him and a girl.

It was a Thursday afternoon. Not exactly prime church visiting time, as far as Sam understood it. Other than the fake priest in the front row and the girl who was asking him so very many questions, the other people in the small chapel added up to three. Just a few scattered worshipers with their heads down as they embraced whatever peace there was to be found. There was a lot of empty room in the room and Sam wasn't really expecting anyone to sit down beside him.

And that anyone beside him could have literally been almost anyone in the world and Sam would have smiled politely, because that's the sort of person that he was.

But it wasn't anyone.

It was the devil.

And Sam flinched.

Lucifer winked at him and stretched his arms across the back of the bench like a less than subtle date at the movies.

"What are you―"

"You're the only one who can see me, Sam." The devil made only a skimming sort of eye contact before turning his face to the stain glass windows that lined the walls. "Just, you know, in case you didn't want to look like you're talking to yourself."

Sam ran a hand over his mouth, whispering behind his wrist, "You can't be in a church."

"That hardly seems fair considering that I'm prominently displayed in one of the windows up there."

Following the other man's gaze Sam saw that the windows were all bible stories. Going from the resurrection of Christ all the way back to Adam and Eve in the garden, complete with apple tree and devilish serpent with a wide and curling grin.

"You've put on a lot of weight since then," he whispered with as little sound behind it as he could manage.

Lucifer laughed beside him, so there was no doubt in the hunter's mind that he'd been heard clear enough. "I always manage to forget how much I miss that mouth of yours."

This wasn't a good time or place for a conversation with the man that only he could see. Sam rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands together and pressing his knuckles to his forehead. Keeping his head low he did his best not to speak above a whisper, fairly certain that the devil didn't need to actually hear the words to know what was being said to him.

"What are you doing here?"

"Not bursting into flame, or whatever it is that you think I should be doing." He walked his fingers across Sam's shoulder before settling an arm around him like they were old friends. "Is now a bad time to tell you that I've always had a thing for priests?"

Sam kept his head down only because he couldn't think of a way to slap the other man off of him without looking like he was battling imaginary bees.

"It's that tight collar I think. All buttoned up and just perfect. Asking to be unwrapped."

"First off, we're in a church, so behave. Second, there weren't Catholic priests back before the fall of Rome when you were last _unwrapping_ anyone, so we both know that you're just being a little shit. Knock it off."

"Watch your mouth, young man." Lucifer leaned close enough to whisper into Sam's ear even though it was wholly unnecessary. "This is my father's house after all. Show some respect."

Turning his head just a few degrees to the right put Sam nearly nose to nose with the devil who was still hanging off of him with this comfortably and far too close kind of weight. "Did you need something or are you just here to try and scare me?"

"That all depends." Little crow's feet spread on the corners of his eyes. A smile that Sam was too close to see the rest of. "Does this scare you, Sam?"

"Do you need something, _Luci_?" He stubbornly repeated the question.

"I was checking in on my property, making sure everything was all still in one piece," he lightly touched his nose to Sam's hair as he whispered. "And I couldn't help but notice that you and that handsome brother of yours were out here looking for an angel. I'm a little worried that you might be trying to replace me."

Sam felt stupid for even asking, but still the words left his mouth, "Is it a real angel?"

"I wouldn't be here if it was. I'm not interested in a family reunion." He sat upright, putting a bit of much needed distance between them, resting his head against the back of the bench. "And what do you mean ' _a real angel'_? Aren't I real enough for you? Aren't I awe inspiring and terrifyingly holy?"

"You're definitely something." Sam straightened, dropping his prayer folded hands to nod to Dean who was walking back to him with a strange little smile. "You ready to go?"

Not the slightest flicker of recognition for the third person in the conversation, Dean nodded. "Yeah," though he sounded a little distracted as he watched the pretty woman he'd been talking to leaving through the front doors, turing back to give a little smile and wave to the two men in priest's clothing. And sort of like something resembling a gentleman Dean waved back before turning to his brother and saying with a certain level of regret, "Sammy, I gotta tell you, it can be real rough being a man of god."

"Dude, don't make it worse. We're probably already going to hell for dressing like this and pretending to be priests."

Lucifer grinned beside him. "It's not like you won't know anyone there."

"Shut up," Sam hissed as he got to his feet, and then felt slightly bad about it because he hadn't bothered to really whisper all that well and Dean looked vaguely offended at the words that he hadn't known were not directed at him.

"Yeah well, same to you." He folded his arms over his chest. "I'm gunna go talk to Father Reynolds about our ghost then we can head back to the motel and get out of these penguin suits." Which had been the plan from the beginning before Dean had been distracted by a pretty face.

"Let him know," Lucifer grinned from where he sat, saying words that were only for Sam, "that if he needs any help, I'm free for the next hour or so. I'm a little rusty but pretty sure I remember my way around a nice, neat row of buttons."

Sam wasn't in a good position to talk back, or ask why it was that the devil had decided today that he wanted to suddenly get flirty, or why he was directing it towards Dean of all people. Though like most things that he did it was probably just to be as annoying as possible. The best that Sam could do was try not to acknowledge it and hope that it just stopped on its own once the devil realised that this wasn't going to get much of a rise out of the young hunter.

The devil's proposition still weirded Sam out, though.

He was grateful for how small the building was. It meant that Dean didn't have to go far to talk to the Father, and that meant that it was only a very small window that Sam had to stand there and pretend that he couldn't see or hear the devil beside him who continued to make suggestions that should never be made in churches.

Months and months between their visits and Sam was remembering very quickly that he could have easily gone longer.

"You know," he tucked his hands into his pockets and scuffed his feet on the floor, trying to look casual as he talked to the man that only he could see. "Why don't you make yourself more visible and you can take it up with Dean."

"Oh come on. Don't be like that." Luci reached out, playing with one of the buttons on Sam's sleeve. "You know you're the only filthy human for me."

Sam side stepped away from the casual touch, and when no teasing response came he glanced back at the bench. The devil was gone, and Sam was left to wait awkwardly for his brother to come back to him with news of where the vengeful ghost priest's body was kept.

As hunts went it was one of their more straight forward ones.

The ghost was snuffed out and there wouldn't be anyone else in Providence, Rhode Island getting visions from 'angels'.

They traveled south once the body of the priest was burned, for a change of pace they were traveling just to travel. Not heading towards a new hunt, not running from law enforcement. The space between monsters was as unsteady and as long lasting as a snowfall in June. As soon as they stopped, while Dean was checking them into a room for the night, Sam was logging into the motel's wifi and looking for any hint of a direction to start tomorrow with.

"You wanna grab some dinner before we settle in?" Tossing his duffle bag onto the bed nearest the door, Dean had a hopeful and hungry look to him.

The bedside clock said it was one in the morning, and even double checking the little timestamp at the top of his phone didn't make that feel any more accurate. "Somewhere close," was Sam's only requirement. He wasn't tired yet, but it was bound to hit him soon enough.

They walked themselves to the warm yellow glow of the Denny's sign down the block. A good night to stretch their legs. Warm cozy glow of city lights and street lamps masking most of the stars. The early autumn chill not quite deep enough to make them regret leaving their jackets back in the car.

Sam wasn't even sure where they were at this point. He hadn't been paying close enough attention to state lines while his brother had been driving. The street sign they passed under said 'Mustang Way' and that was enough clarity for the time being.

"Is it weird if I'm a bit disappointed that it wasn't a real angel back in Providence?"

Frowning, Sam missed a step. "We already know a real angel," and that felt like more than enough at times.

Dean shook his head, chuckling. "Yeah, and he's a real piece of work―but is that all angels or is it just your boyfriend? I mean, he is The Devil, so maybe he's just a son of a bitch on principle."

Whether or not that was true, Sam felt a mighty need to shut it down. "Probably shouldn't talk about him that way."

"Oh. Sorry, Francis." Dean's elbow caught him in the ribs. "I always forget how protective you are over your favorite monster."

"I don't want to have this conversation again." He pushed hair from his face before tugging open the doors to the diner. "But I think he's listening in sometimes and he's already weird enough about you without all the trash talking."

"Listening in like… like he wiretapped us?"

"No, like sometimes he's invisible." Sam hadn't been able to come up with a better explanation as to why Lucifer knew exactly why they were in Rhode Island, except that he had been lurking unseen and watching them for at least a little while. And that would have sounded slightly more crazy if everything else in their life wasn't already so far to the right of the bell curve.

"Invisible like the Predator?" Dean never got as excited as when his life crossed over into an 80s action flick.

"No, probably not like Predator. But he popped up back in Providence for a few minutes while you were off talking to the padre, and it seemed like he'd been," Sam cut himself off as a tired looking woman met them at the counter with a pot of coffee and a practiced smile.

"You boys find yourselves a seat. I'll be right with you." Her name tag said 'Sandra' and the way that she looked at them said that she wasn't in the mood for whatever trouble they might be thinking about offering.

"Thanks, sweetheart." Dean grinned (because weary waitresses had never daunted him) and then he lead the way to a booth where he could sit with a wall to his back and keep an eye on the door. Old habits that Dad had hammered into them that still felt as familiar as breathing.

Sam sat diagonal to his big brother so he could watch the room too. Not that there was all that much going on at this late hour. A small collection of stoners up near the counter who looked to be really getting into some 'all you can eat flapjacks', a pair of gals who had recently gotten off a night shift if their scrubs and name tags meant anything, and a few tables spotted with student types who were mostly keeping their heads down and their coffees close.

"So you think the devil is stalking us?" Dean seemed far more amused by the idea than he should have. "You think he was being a creep back in New Mexico?"

For about two seconds Sam struggled to remember what happened back in New Mexico which might have been of interest to anyone at all. There hadn't been a hunt. No monsters to be found. They'd only passed through about two weeks back, stayed one night in a overly western themed hotel room―well, Dean had stayed in the motel room with a very cute coed from the local college, and Sam had slept in the car.

"I like to hope that he's got better things to do than watch you getting it on with some random girl you picked up in a bar."

"Wow. Jealous much there, Sammy?"

Sam shook his head and picked up the little placard on the table that advertised whatever the current special going on was. He wasn't interested in the seasonal offerings, but Sanda still hadn't swung by with proper menus, so he was rather limited in what he had to pretend to be interested in.

"She had a friend. She offered. I mean, you do you, man. But this hunger strike's got to be killing you." Dean reached over and smacked the ad that Sam was holding, just doing his best to be annoying. "You're even starting to make me jumpy."

Shaking his head again was the only answer that he was willing to give. Not out of modesty, or embarrassment, but because it wasn't Dean's business if and when Sam felt like finding pleasant company. Also, because their waitress was placing menus and glasses of water in front of them.

"You boys want any coffee, or should I give you a minute to look over the menu?"

There were three things that Dean knew by heart. The original Star Wars trilogy, seemingly every name of every major town in America and how long it would take to get somewhere from anywhere else, and the menu at Denny's.

While his brother placed his order by heart Sam scanned the first two pages and impulsively picked an egg white omelet from the heart healthy options; earning him a less than subtle eye roll from Dean and a small nod from Sandra. She took their menus and walked off with the purpose of a woman who had better things to be doing at this time of night.

"So…" Dean had the vague decency to wait until they were fully alone in their corner once again. "How long has it been?"

Almost a year ago Jess had died―so it had been roughly a year, but Sam didn't share that. "You really want the details of my personal life here, Dean?"

"Hell no. I'm just passing the time until my bacon gets here."

"Then you mind if we talk about something else?"

Dean raised an eyebrow, seeming to be waiting for a suggestion.

" _Anything_ else."

A sliver of a smirk moved over his brother. "Course. You, uh, you ever get around to paying the devil back for that thing between him and me in the hospital?"

This was not a better topic and if Sam only had the ability to injure someone with a glare alone then Dean would have started coughing blood right about then.

Instead he started laughing, loving the way it was only too easy to rile up his kid brother. "Dude, I can't tell if that's a yes or a no, but you've still got it something awful for him. Don't you?"

Sam got out his phone with every intention of not having this conversation, regardless of how incriminating his silence might be, and finding them another case.

"I mean, if you're not all goofy over him and your heart's not set on getting railed by Satan specifically, we've probably got another hour or so 'til last call. If we eat fast we could hit a strip club and―"

"I need you to stop." Sam stubbornly didn't look up form his phone. "As weird as it is for you to be taking an interest in my sex life, and I'm sure that you think you're doing the awesome big brother thing here, I'd rather be focusing on hunting."

"Suit yourself, man. But holding it in like that can't be healthy is all I'm saying."

"I'll take your word for it, Doctor Winchester."

Dean scoffed at the nickname, peeling the wrapper from his straw and crushing it down into a small ball that he proceeded to flick at Sam's face. "So, any word on anything weird in these parts?"

"Nothing yet, but I'll check the police radio when we get back to the motel and I've got my laptop."

"If you boys are looking for something to do," the devil spoke from Sam's immediate right.

Throat tight and heart hammering to escape his chest, the younger of the two hunters nearly dropped his phone, which was less helpful than Dean's response of a sharp and involuntary noise as he reached for the gun at the small of his back. All Sam could think was ' _good_ ', because at least his brother was seeing this too. It meant a lot less explanation and a lot less feeling like a crazy person desperately trying to ignore a hallucination.

"―can I recommend a place called Topeka?" Lucifer finished, not even batting an eye at his less than welcoming welcome.

"You spooky son of a bitch." Dean eased both hands, empty, back onto the table top. "Shouldn't you be out tempting kids to steal candy or cheat on tests or something?"

"I know that you're a simple man, Dean, and fear might be a bit too complicated of an emotion―but I am the Devil and you could at least try." But he may as well have been asking the man to grow gills and start a new life as a shark.

Sam liked to think of himself as a peacemaker, or at least not the kind of person who was looking forward to witnessing what would surely be a spectacular but rather one sided fight in a Denny's.

Under the concealing edge of the table Sam touched two fingers to Lucifer's arm and watched with a worried sort of fascination as the devil's attention turned to him in a rather all consuming way. That quiet electric spark between them the same as it had always been, building up beneath his fingertips in a way that wasn't unpleasant. "It ended up being a ghost, not an angel."

With a slow blink and all kinds of too much eye contact the devil gave a one shoulder shrug. "I heard that your brother was a little disappointed by that."

Dean sputtered, "when did I―"

"When you boys were walking."

Obviously offended, Dean crossed his arms over his chest. "So you really do listen in on us like a creep, don't you?"

"Only sometimes?" He shrugged again, like it was really no big deal. "It's usually only for a few seconds, just to check in on Sam. I stayed a little longer tonight, I was resting my wings in the back seat of the car so I missed whatever you two cavemen were going over while you dumped your luggage off, but I joined you for the walk." Lucifer looked completely unphased by Dean's insult. "It's a very nice night for walking, less nice for sitting in an establishment that smells like this place smells."

The brothers were both curiously quiet, and Sam wondered if him and Dean were caught on the same idea, or if his brother was just taking a moment to come up with a particularly biting response. Leaning back a little in his seat and glancing to the side it seemed that Sam was not as subtle as he was hoping to be.

"You can't see my wings any more than you can see a soul," Lucifer gave Sam such a long and judging look. "And you could try to be a little less obvious next time you're checking me out. You'll make your brother start to feel like a third wheel."

"Nah, man. You two love birds have at it, my bacon is here." And he turned to their waitress with such a smile, taking from her his plate of pancakes and bacon and sausage and country potatoes, enough food for all three of them.

"Can I get you a menu?" Sandra handed an omelet to Sam while she nodded to Lucifer.

"No. Thank you." The polite words a little flat under his very disinterested tone. "I don't eat."

"Alright," she gave him a funny look before nodding to the brothers. "You boys let me know if you need anything else then," she said before she walked off to check in with her other tables.

"You watching your figure there, Satan?" Dean asked with a mouthful of his night-breakfast.

"Angels don't need to eat anymore than we need to sleep."

Dean chewed slowly. "Don't remember reading about that in any of the lore." Which was more said to Sam than Lucifer, sort of a 'hey, neat' kind of statement that maybe needed to get added to the journal when they got back to the motel. Trust in Dean to get interested when it had something to do with food.

" _Dean_ , I'm flattered." Lucifer put a hand to his heart. "You've been reading about little old me?"

"Yeah well there ain't much better incentive to do some research than a man's little brother promising his ass to the devil."

Lucifer grinned in a way that was very startling. He leaned into Sam and Sam's touch that still lingered on his forearm. "I love how he makes everything so sexual, don't you?"

And Sam only then really noticed that he was sandwiched between the two men and there was nothing left for him to do but silently shake his head and start on his meal.

With a soft, almost sentimental sounding sigh, the devil turned and twisted his arm under Sam's grip until their hands touched. He loosely hooked their fingers and it was just so strange and unexpected that the hunter didn't pull away immediately. Lucifer didn't look at him though, he busied himself with examining the restaurant's decor like he'd never really seen a diner before.

Sam was good to eat and ignore the fact that he was holding hands with the devil if it kept the man quiet. A small sacrifice that he didn't actually mind other than the little sweaty kind of warmth between their palms.

If Dean had any clue that there was some funny business going on a few feet from him he didn't show any indication, still tucking himself into his meal. "If you're going to be a freak and watch us eat you could at least explain what the fuck is so interesting in Topeka."

"One really exciting and terrible thing. And if you'd like to try asking again, but a little nicer this time, I'd be happy to tell you about it."

Dean looked very unimpressed by the way that the devil smiled at him.

"Or not," the little head tilt that Lucifer gave was so easy and relaxed. "I was just trying to help."

Dean waved a mostly eaten slice of bacon at the devil like a chiding finger shake. "You know it's rare that I meet a son of a bitch that I just want to punch in the face as much as I want to punch you in the face."

Slowly the devil's fingers curled every so slightly tighter. "Breaking such a proud and beautiful thing like you would be a treat if I wasn't so afraid of your brother. That being said, in a town called Topeka is a gun that can kill almost anything."

In their line of work such broad promises held a lot of interesting weight.

Sam heard the bait but refused to take it. "And you can make people go pop with a flick of your fingers, so what do you want with a gun that can kill 'almost anything'?"

"I have reasons." He brushed his shoulder along Sam's almost playfully. "But my reasons can hold steady for the next few years. I figured you boys can take the gun, use it as you see fit, keep it all safe and clean for me until I need it."

"And you can't get it for yourself because?" Dean, just as mistrusting and stubborn as his kid brother in so many ways, wasn't one to walk directly into such a good offer without some important questions first.

"Because what's the point of keeping pet hunters around if I can't send them out to run my errands for me?"

Dean's lip curled in a sneer. "How's about fuck you, Satan? Go pick up your own damn toys. We're not your maids."

Sam found himself frowning at his brother, because Dean's words didn't match his almost teasing tone. It was unsettling to think that someone other than himself was slowly being won over by the unexpected and charming weirdness that was the devil.

Hidden from the rest of the room Lucifer ran his thumb over the dips and valleys of Sam's knuckles. "It's in a place that I can't get to. Not a dangerous place. Just a very angel proof place."

"You can angel proof things?" Dean perked up with something that sounded so hopeful.

Lucifer leaned into the table, closer to the older of the two hunters with the smile of a man who was selling something very bad to a very naive person. "Oh the things I could teach you boys."

To which Sam wanted to say no a few times over just for emphasis.

But Dean grinned and made an offer on behalf of him and his brother. "We go get your gun and you teach us how to keep angels out. That's the deal."

"I think I can agree to that." Making deals might be one of the only thing that the devil enjoyed more than touching Sam. He looked only too pleased to accept the terms.

"Yeah, but I don't want you trying to renegotiate. We're not trading angel proofing for making-out." Dean said between bites. "You're not my type, buddy."

"He's not anyone's type," Sam said sullenly to his eggs.

And the other two men laughed, which sort of set the mood for the rest of his night.


	14. Chapter 14

"I hate you both… just so, _so_ very much." Sam was tempted to walk on the other side of the street, even if their motel was only a few yards away. He wanted as much space as he could find between himself and the devil and the devil's new best buddy.

"Hey, asking if the blood needed to be virgin blood is totally a legit question." Dean shamelessly threw his arms out, shrugging as if he and Lucifer hadn't both looked at Sam when 'virgin' had been mentioned.

Sam wasn't. Hadn't been in years. They both knew it, and they were both too annoying to be real. This had to be a bad dream. Sam was having a mild nightmare, a B movie nightmare, with a low budget and a very predictable plot. He would have pinched himself awake if he thought it might actually work.

"Animal blood, people blood, I've never really noticed a difference. It's getting the letters right more than what you write it with that's going to keep angels out." Lucifer was possibly the most vague teacher that Sam had ever had. "I guess you could even write it in pen if you had one handy."

"Dude, you really should start with 'pen' before getting into writing things in blood." Dean was laughing. "Baby steps. Baby steps."

"I'm just saying that you can use whatever you have on hand."

"So you lead with 'blood'?" Sam wished that either he'd passed on going out to dinner all together, or that he'd gotten himself a coffee while they were there. He had this ice pick of a headache behind his left eye and with each slightly more stupid thing being said he felt the ache grow.

"Do _you_ always have a pen with you, Sam? Because I don't. And after much close examination of you and your pockets I feel confident in saying that you don't have one either."

For a moment Sam got to feel very uncomfortable as the devil's eyes made a quick pass down the length of him. Oddly, he thought that if they were alone he would have enjoyed it―but Dean was on the other side of him and his big brother made for an awkward spectator to the little tension between Lucifer and himself.

" _Gah_ , get a room you two." Dean grunted and get the motel keys from his pocket.

"Oh, now there's a fun idea." Lucifer made what could only be described as 'pretty eyes' in Sam's direction. "You and me, a little room just for us. I've seen motel rooms. They're small. Hardly any room for you to run away."

"I'm not paying for you two to have a love nest―and I ain't sleeping in the car either." With a overly pointed sneer, Dean opened the door and went in. "So unless you've got a gold card, Satan, y'all just have to find a better night to get your freak on."

Neither Sam nor Lucifer pointed out that Dean had spent a small part of this evening trying to convince his little brother that some sex would do him good. It had been teasing at the Denny's, and it was more teasing now, and Dean could lay off it at any time and that would be great.

The older of the two hunters took a chair, sitting in it backwards, hooking an ankle around the leg of the chair. It was such a casual movement, or at least a good facsimile of one. If the brothers had been alone Dean would have been flat on one of the beds, open and relaxed, his gun on the nightstand or tucked under his pillow. Instead he had his arms crossed over the cane back of the chair, and something close to a smile on his face. "So we basically write 'angels get the fuck out' on the walls and that works?"

"More or less…" Distracted from the brothers by the room he stood in, Lucifer was watching the wallpaper as if it had just insulted his mother. "The words don't really translate well, but I'll write them down for you."

Sam was fairly certain that ninety eight percent of the reason that Dean wanted to know these words was to keep the devil out of his car and away from his brother, but that's not the kind of accusation that you make out loud.

"It won't work on archangels," said the archangel who had very carefully started picking at a peeled up edge of the paper, peeling it back almost soundlessly. "... just so you know. And I didn't have to tell you that part, but I would like that gun and I don't want you finding reasons to keep it from me later." So focused on tearing a long thin strip from the wall.

Startled, Sam looked at Dean, that sort of crawling, insect against his skin kind of itch along his spine. He didn't know if the devil had read his mind; another one of those accusations that you just can't make out loud.

"Speaking of that gun," Dean didn't understand the look his brother had shot him, only shrugging one shoulder in soundless communication before trying to keep up the almost conversation with the devil. "Your 'can kill almost anything' gun of magic and wonder, what sort of 'anything' are we talking about here."

"There are only five things in all of creation that the gun can't kill." Speaking to the wall, not even glancing in Dean's direction the devil pointed out, "I am one of those… just in case you were hoping to become the Brutus to my Cesar. I know how your mind works, Dean."

Along with the slight flinch that looked an awful lot like a glare, Dean denied nothing. "What about the four other things?"

"You ask a lot of questions."

"You're saying that we can have a deus ex machina gun," Sam's headache pounded like a heartbeat. "But it comes with specifically five limitations on it. That's the kind of thing that hunters ask questions about because that's the kind of thing that gets us killed."

"The other four are no one that you're ever going to run into." He held aloft his strip of tattered argyle paper like a prize, a flash of a grin that withered when he saw that the other two were not even remotely impressed. "Just… don't let it worry you, alright?"

An answer which oddly seemed to satisfy Dean.

Sam however? "You know, saying not to worry really doesn't do anything to stop the worry, Luci."

"You feel spooked, my Sam?" A breath of a smile moved over Lucifer. "Would you like me to hold you close and whisper gentle, comforting things?"

Dean tried to hide a laugh behind a rather fake sounding cough and Sam could have punched his brother in the throat.

"I will take your frigid silence as a 'no'," Lucifer didn't look too upset, obviously enjoying having an audience to his regularly scheduled Sam-harassment.

Sam watched as the devil tucked the paper into a pocket and he could only guess as to why. He folded his arms over his chest because he needed to do something with them other than reach over and take back the paper out of spite. "You know what? You can take my frigid silence and shove it up your―"

" _Welp_ , I can smell myself," Dean interrupted almost forcefully, that laughter curling and making his words light. "Why don't you two crazy kids sort yourselves out while I go get a shower. If I remember this place right from last time we passed through, the water pressure is decent, so you boys've got about twenty minutes. Make 'em count."

Luci watched Dean vanish behind the bathroom door, tilting his head like a dog in thought. He waited until the white noise of water running picked up before asking no one in particular, "Why is it, that you brothers have switched places on me?"

The words meant nothing to Sam. All he knew was that Dean had suddenly left him alone with a man that he wasn't sure he wanted to be alone with. His brother, who'd come into the motel and had stayed ready to throw a punch if necessary, had left because apparently this situation had been deemed safe for Sam.

Or maybe Dean had heard or sensed something between the other two men and felt it best to let them sort it out on their own.

Only Dean knew what Dean hoped to come of this sudden abandonment.

Tired, and tired, and more tired under the pounding of his headache, Sam let down every guard he had and sat on the foot of one of the beds. He pressed a hand to his eyes, pads of his thumb and forefinger digging into his lids and making little starburst explode.

"All night he's been flirting with me and here you are, acting like I spit in your cornflakes." Lucifer spoke from somewhere behind the press of darkness that Sam was trying to let consume him. "It's different. And different is usually good, but I'd rather have you than him and…Sam, are you alright?"

"I'm tired," it wasn't a lie. It wasn't the whole truth either, but it's all that Sam had in him.

"Your head hurts." Not a question, and his hands suddenly on either of Sam's cheeks were not there with permission.

Sam dropped his own hands to his lap and looked up, very still, very unsure. Lucifer was kneeling on the ground in front of him and it was too weird. The young hunter tried to pull away but found that the devil's grip was as strong as the look of concern on his face.

"Can I?"

"Can you… what?" Sam hated giving this man the go ahead to do anything. It always felt like a trap.

"Your head," Lucifer's thumbs traced slow circles over Sam's temples, the prickle of static between them making the movement oddly soothing. "I like to hear a yes before poking around in heads that don't belong to me quite yet."

"I'm fine."

"You're lying to me because you're mad for some reason and you'd rather have a migraine than let me help you."

"And you're surprised by that?"

"I'm a little hurt, Sam." Lucifer hadn't taken his hands back, just kneeling at Sam's feet and touching him so gently but unapologetically. "Hurt, but not surprised."

If he were a stronger person then Sam might have pushed the devil away. He hated the weakness in him that craved this man's touch more than proper self preservation. Despite what the smarter part of his mind clamored for him to do, he just sighed. Sighed and tried to look annoyed, and stayed so very still so as not to dislodge the tender touch.

Lucifer bit his lip as he watched Sam, those pale eyes of his searching, flicking over the hunter in his hands as if he were reading him page by page. A slow frown making pinched lines in his cheeks. "You have a very skewed sense of right and wrong and you're still enjoying playing the woeful martyr on behalf of a woman who consorted with demons and was trying to kill you―is that really it? I heard your brother say it before but I thought, ' _no, not my Sam_ '. He's stubborn, and gentle hearted, but he's not that much of a hypocrite."

Sam really hated how well the devil knew him. "...You blew her up." And the argument was weak in his own ears. He wasn't really still angry about the woman and her golem. Maybe there was a lingering bit of shock that such a thing was even possible―but not technically angry about it. Still, he clung to that memory of anger like a lifeline, because sullen anger was a more useful emotion than whatever else he felt when faced with this man.

"Would you had rather I stab her twenty times with a demon killing blade like your dad would have done? Would that have been more merciful to you, my tender hearted little hunter and slayer of ferocious beasts?"

"That's… that's not fair."

"I'm the devil." Lucifer reminded. "I'm not supposed to be fair. Just like you're a human so you're not supposed to make any kind of sense. You're petty and mean and arbitrary, and beautiful like a summer storm, _and_ your head hurts. Can I help you?"

Reluctantly, Sam closed his eyes and gave the faintest nod.

The pressure and steady throb of pain vanished like a sandcastle in the wake of a wave. Relief crashing over Sam in a way that made him almost breathless.

"I don't like to see you hurting." Lucifer murmured in a occupied sort of way like he was concentrating.

"It's just a headache."

Sighing, Lucifer pressed his forehead to Sam's for just a beat. "I was trying to be sweet. Let me be sweet."

Opening a single eye, Sam peered out from under the fall of hair in his face, dismayed to see that the devil was still so very close. "Why? Why do you do this to me?"

"Because you're my favorite." Lucifer looked to be fighting to keep a smile off his face. "Yours are the only feet I would ever kneel at."

Words like that were never meant to be said in such a casual tone by someone like Lucifer. Even Sam knew that and his back stiffened. Life had not prepared him, had not given him any kind of proper tools, to unpack a statement like that.

"You're the only person I've ever met who would demand to show me the ape planet movie like in doing so you'd somehow save me―and knowing full well that I can snap a person out of existence, you still call me a little shit." He slowly took his hands from Sam's cheeks and gave one of his meaningless shrugs, pushing aside those confusing sorts of words to add, "Also, I'm sort of leasing you that fine body of yours for the next few years, so you'll have to forgive me if I'm a little overly invested in your well being."

It was possible that the first and last statements were both true, but Sam didn't want both sides of that coin. He was almost positive that that second part was why he still dug his nails into those lingering threads of anger whenever he had a chance.

It was hard to let yourself like someone when you were fairly certain that that person was only waiting around for you to die.

"And… somehow that was the wrong thing to say, wasn't it?" Lucifer let out a rattling breath like it would be his last one. "I don't believe in apologies, so I guess I'll just try my luck again next time. I'll get my words right with you eventually."

Though Sam was certain that he wasn't going to like the answer he still asked, "And what do you think happens when you do?"

"You smile at me again. Like you did when you were young and angry and in the backseat of your father's car and didn't think that I could see you properly in the little mirrors."

Sam didn't think that he could live in a world where the actual Devil, the King of Hell, and Father of all lies, wanted nothing more than for someone as insignificant as Sam to smile at him.

"You, um, going to write down that Angel warding stuff for us?" So he changed the subject.

Lucifer didn't seem bothered, but to be fair there was very little that ever ruffled his feathers. "If it's all the same, and I trust you more than your brother, I'll wait to keep up my end of the bargain until you boys have the gun to trade me. Just to be on the safe side."

It's not like Sam could argue that Dean wouldn't take the angel spell and just run with it, so he let it go. "You want to tell us where in Topeka we're going to be looking for your magical gun before you get out and let me get some sleep?"

"Can I whisper it in your ear?"

The 'no' that clammored inside of Sam weirdly came out sounding like the word, "Why?"

"Because any excuse to touch you is an excuse I want to take," was the simple answer that came with a side order of a serpent's smile.

That 'no' had gone from a gentle protest to a full blow riot inside of Sam, egged on by years of pent up stubbornness and teenage angst. But when he opened his mouth the words that came this time sounded an awful lot like "Yeah, if it will get you out of here faster."

At any point Sam could have pushed the other man away, but instead he felt balanced on the blade of a knife as he sat there and let the worst whispering ever happen to him. And it's hard to say that someone is _bad_ at whispering, but Lucifer was undeniably weirder than necessary about it.

His hands gently pushed Sam's knees apart, making room between his legs to inch closer. Close enough that their chests brushed. Close enough that when he leaned into Sam to speak their bodies lined up from hip to shoulder. Lucifer's cheek was cold against Sam's, his stubble rough but in a way that was not even close to unpleasant. He had long fingers and the hand that came up to hold the hunter in place wrapped all the way around the back of his neck, thumb fitting too easily to the soft spot behind Sam's ear. It was possessive and very close and very, very unexpectedly nice.

The first few directions were completely lost to Sam. He couldn't really be expected to hear when every brain cell that he possessed was hyper focused on the way that the other man's breath tickled over his ear and all that fine electrical current between them was spreading out inside of him like hairline fractures in glass, spider webbing and splintering under his skin.

" _What_?" Sam hated to ask. Hated to admit that he hadn't been listening.

With a soft hum that was wholly unnecessary, the devil whispered something like a lie, "I didn't say anything."

"You were telling where the gun was…?"

"I was actually telling you that you smell nice."

"Where's the damn gun, or get off of me." Sam forced himself to give the ultimatum, which actually came as a bit of a surprised because he was fairly certain that if his hands weren't in a death grip on the blanket under him than he'd have tanged them in this man's hair just so that he couldn't leave even if he wanted to.

Lucifer sighed, "I can feel you talking and it's inside of me like a living thing." His fingers had made knots in the hair that fell down the back of Sam's neck. He shook his head, which shook Sam's head, and seemed to be having a hard time remembering why he was down here on the floor like this, despite the fact that Sam had literally just told him.

"The gun…"

"Sam, don't talk, just listen, or I'm going to end up doing something very ungentlemanly to you that you and me and your brother will all regret." Lucifer apparently didn't want a reminder, just a quiet moment to collect himself―which Sam was more than ok to give him because he had absolutely no idea how to process the threat that had just been pressed against the curve of his ear.

"The gun," the devil tried to start at the beginning, his words hardly more than a breath that ghosted between them. "It's in the home of a hunter who is currently very dead. You should know that it's a colt. That might help you pick it out of whatever homemade militia that that man has stored up in his closets and under the floorboards. The gun was made by Samuel Colt during the whole Alamo… thing that you guys had a while back. I'm going to talk too much because the more words I use the longer I get to hold you, and you agreed to it, so ha. The gun is in a one story house on the northern side of town. It's got a blue door and," very literally he took as much time as he could manage, giving Sam all the most mundane descriptors that he could come up with, in place of an address, just to drag this out.

Sam said nothing, because the devil had never really threatened him before and also because it was hard to say what details were going to be important and he didn't want to miss any. So he listened and tried to stay focused even when the other man's lips accidentally brushed against his skin from time to time.

This was by far the least effective way to give anyone directions and Sam had absolutely zero complaints about it. In fact he'd very willingly do it again later, for any kind of information. He'd sit here like this for hours if Lucifer wanted nothing more than to read him the phonebook.

Dean came out of the shower though, and Dean didn't understand these things.

"Alright, break it up, you two weirdos." He threw a damp towel over their heads as he moved through the room. "I need some shut eye and that's gunna give me nightmares."

From under their towel, trapped in their own very tiny fort, Lucifer kept whispering. One last question that had no right to exist. "Can I kiss you goodnight, not in trade for anything, just to kiss you goodnight?"

Sam's traitorous mouth apparently thought that then, right then, was the perfect time to finally let out that sharp little "No," that he'd been holding onto. Before he could correct himself the devil was gone. No goodbye, no parting words, not even a hurt look spared. Sam was just suddenly alone.

He pulled the towel from his head, not caring what it did to his hair. Sam didn't have a whole lot in him to care about things right then when it was so much easier to just hate himself for a few seconds. Hated his big brother a little more. But eventually it came back full circle to Sam hating himself and whatever inside of him was so broken.

"You alright, dude?"

"I'm…" Sam was many things right then, but alright was not one of them. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Dean had flopped himself down onto the other bed, wearing boxers and a shirt and looking already half asleep. "Were you, uh... paying the devil back for the hospital thing?"

"Already got that checked off my list," Sam threw Dean towel back at him and forced himself to pretend that he was a normal human and not dying inside. "He was telling me where we can find that gun."

" _Sure_ he was, 'cus you don't look at all like a kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar and he didn't just fuck off like the guiltiest man alive."

"I'm going to go to bed, Dean." Sam fell back, legs still dangling off the end of the mattress, feet firmly on the floor. "Can you give me a hard time tomorrow instead?"

"Yeah… you sure you're alright?" Worry had replaced that teasing, because it was one of the few things that Dean was better at doing.

"I'm just really tired, man."

"It's a lot of fun, don't get me wrong, but I don't mean to be a complete cock block all the time, Sammy. I was joking before about not sleeping in the car. If you wanna call him back up and―"

"Good night, Dean." Out of his peripheral Sam watched his brother watching him back for a little too long before getting up and turning out the light. Darkness didn't help him to shake the memories of Lucifer against him, couldn't erase the curious way that he'd been asked for a kiss. Just a good night kiss. Just to have a kiss. And Sam had said 'no' when what he'd wanted to say was 'no, don't _ask_ me, you son of a bitch, just kiss me like you should have been kissing me for months'.

He didn't sleep well. He hadn't slept well in forever so it's not like he wasn't used to it.

Dean must have felt really bad about the night before, because he woke Sam up with coffee and breakfast burritos from the 7-11 down the street. An olive branch before they got back on the road. An edible apology for interrupting whatever he'd interrupted.

And Sam did his best not to hold it against his brother. After all, Dean had only witnessed Sam's fuck up, he hadn't caused it.

"So, Topeka?"

"'Bout two day's drive from here," Dean answered before shoving the last few bites of breakfast into his face.

"Even with how you drive?"

Grinning, Dean talked around his mouthful of food. "Even with how I drive."

Traffic was unkind and pushed their trip past the original estimate. It put them out in the middle of nowhere by the time that they were both too tired to drive. Dean slumped in the passenger seat, head resting against the window while Sam drove with his wrists. The third time that the Impala rambled over the center dividing lines, the reflectors making drumline noises beneath the tires, Dean woke himself enough to swear at Sam.

"Pull over before you wreck my car, you son of a bitch."

It wasn't a bad idea so Sam pulled them off onto a service road. He didn't even have the energy to clamber into the backseat, just slept behind the wheel and faced an early morning with the sun blinding off the windshield and a stiff neck and shoulders. To his right Dean was half out of the car, the door swung wide and his legs undoubtedly stretched out and comfortable as he talked quietly into his cell phone.

The two of them didn't exactly have friends to call and talk to, and family members were in short supply. Phone Calls were uncommon and rarely ever good.

He only got one side of the conversation, which meant Sam no good guesses as to what was going on.

Dean was talking with sleep still heavy in his voice, a sign that it hadn't been his idea to talk on the phone at six in the AM. "No, I mean, it wasn't my idea―Ottawa?―we're nowhere near Canada. I think we might have made it into Kansas last night―what?"

Figuring it would be simpler to just have his brother fill him in later, Sam unfolded himself from the car, grabbing his duffle from the back seat and fishing out his toothbrush and a half full bottle of stale water. He needed coffee, but that would have to wait until they hit the closest town.

By the time he was spitting a mouthful of minty fresh water into the dry grass Dean was standing and stretching and blinking wildly into the cloudless sky.

"What's up?"

"Bobby called."

Sam used the edge of his sleeve to wipe at his mouth. "Everything ok?"

"Dad got arrested."

Confused, Sam didn't know how to respond to that. It wasn't so much that he was surprised that John would have been picked up by the police, but why would Bobby know about it and why would he call the boys?

Dean had turned his face out to the highway, probably trying to figure out just where the hell they were. "He was caught on a protected wildlife preserve up in Quebec, Canada. Hunting gear and apparently no good back story. He told the mounties that he was part of Vermont's Department of Fish and Game or something and was tracking elk. Gave out Bobby's number as his boss."

"Did… did Bobby back him up?" There was no lost love between the two men and Sam had his suspicions on how well that might have gone.

"Apparently yeah." Dean seemed equally surprised. "But Bobby thinks that Dad might be in a bit over his head out there."

"What's he hunting?"

"Dude, he's hunting a Bigfoot." And if Dean had tried to sound any more excited he might have hurt something.

"Aren't those only up in the Pacific Northwest?"

"A _Bigfoot_ , Sammy, Come on."

"It's Sam. Not Sammy," came the involuntary response. He wished that he had something a bit more substantial to add to what his brother was suggestion, but the idea of hunting with John once more made Sam physically ill. His stomach churning and his ears already ringing at the harsh words that would be falling over him.

"It's a bit of a drive, but I can give him a call and―"

"Why don't we finish up getting the colt and _then_ we can see if he still needs the help that he didn't ask for in the first place?" Sam was throwing out alternative choices like he was sowing crops in hopes of saving his starving wife and kids. "We're already here. It's less than a hundred miles to Topeka."

Dean was watching him in that way that he did sometimes. That big brotherly look that he'd developed in Sam's infancy. Something was wrong, something that he couldn't really fix even though he'd been trying to for years. They didn't need to talk about it. It wasn't a conversation worth having because they both already knew all the words like an old familiar song.

Tamping down his enthusiasm, Dean took a loud breath and offered a smile that was put together with such deliberate care. "Well yeah. I mean, if we're already here we may as well, right? A little breaking and entering is never out of our way."

Sam did his best to find their destination, relying on the warm and soft directions that had been pressed to his cheek. It was a little difficult when everything came in short and hard to remember sentences.

"Then there was something about a house with rusty cars a tire swing out front."

"Wow, that's real helpful." Dean rapped his fingers against the steering wheel as he glared at the homes that they passed. They'd been at this scavenger hunt through the outskirts of Topeka for half and hour and the older hunter played it like he hated every step, and yet he still tensed each time and started pointing out the landmarks like a little kid. "Oh, yahtzee, house with rusted cars and tire swing. _Bam_. What next, boy wonder?"

"West?"

"Are you asking me?"

"No, I… there were a lot of steps," very unnecessary steps seemingly only for the sake of having as many steps as possible. "And he sort of went through them backwards from the gun outward."

"You're boyfriend is weird."

Sam grunted.

"And the fact that you've stopped telling me that he's not your boyfriend kind of freaks me out."

To which Sam didn't have much of an argument other than a weak, "Well, he's not."

"There's my boy." Dean chuckled under his breath, pleased like Sam had just done a trick. "But try to get a little force behind it next time. Make me believe it."

Shaking his head, Sam tried to keep up the directions as he remembered them, eventually taking him and his brother down an unmarked driveway.

"Dude, is it just me or does every hunter that we've ever visited live in a house that looks exactly like you'd expect a hunter's house to look?"

Sam leaned forward, straining against the seatbelt to look at the tree shaded and very defencable little trackhouse with a blue door. "I guess that they don't want to put any neighbors at risk if something follows them home?"

"They all look like crazy survivalists."

Which wasn't a lie, but Sam felt a small need to defend the others of their profession. "You saying that if we had a house it wouldn't look exactly the same?"

"I'd never let our lawn get that out of hand."

Sam briefly indulged in the idea of him and Dean having a proper home. A daydream that he'd abandoned years and years ago. It was either too late for those kinds of plans, or far too early to be thinking about retirement and settling down like Bobby or some of the more grizzled old bear types of hunters that the Winchesters would probably never grow old enough to be.

"Well, come on. Let's go rifle through a dead man's things." Very few people enjoyed grave robbing early in the mornings like Dean did.

Knocking on the door felt a bit unnecessary, but Sam insisted. Barging into the wrong house, whether or not it belonged to a hunter (living or dead) was just never a good idea. He waited on the porch while Dean went around the side, coming back to report.

"Everything looks locked up tight." Dean jammed his hands into his jacket pocket. "Recognised a thing carved over the back door that's supposed to keep bad spirits out, so this is probably the right place. You sure that whoever lived here is dead?"

"Lucifer said they were."

"And we just trust him with every little thing he tells us?"

"So far… yeah?" Sam wished that he sounded a bit more confident.

"For the record, even with as badass as this gun sounds, I still don't really trust the guy."

"I know."

From a pocket Dean pulled out his lock pick tools, always prepared, he would have made an excellent boy scout. Crouching down to be eye level with the deadbolt, he got to work, mumbling to his brother while he ticked the insides of the lock. "I mean, how are we sure that this isn't just a weird way to kill you off so he can steal your body?"

"You couldn't have brought that up when you and him were getting all buddy-buddy the other night?"

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right?" There came an almost inaudible click that was drown out in Dean's little crow of of satisfaction. He stood, rolling his shoulders before popping the door open and ushering Sam inside like a butler would. "Besides, we play nice with mister big and scary, we get his little angel proofing words and we can slap 'em on you, Sammy. No angels in your body. Problem solved."

Sam wasn't buying it. His brother wasn't that good of an actor. But there was some comfort in knowing that maybe not all of the weird buddy cop banter between Dean and Satan had been genuine. "He said that it won't work on archangels."

Dean rolled his eyes when he saw that Sam wasn't entering the house. "Yeah, because the devil would never lie. But he said that he can't come in here to get the gun because it's warded and then he told us that angel proofing wont work on archangels, and that's some damn conflicting facts if you ask me. What I think is that he just wants us to think that it wouldn't work so that we don't use against him. But we can, and we will, and he can go fuck off."

"... Right." There's no way that it could be that easy. And Sam hadn't told his brother what the other side of his deal with the devil was. Sam was to give away his redundant body in death, and if he tried to get out of it then Dean had a one way ticket to hell. Even after months he still hadn't come up with a good way to breach the subject. Right then, on a dead man's front porch didn't feel like the perfect moment, so that little conversation remained on the back burner.

They moved carefully through the house Sam keeping his gun at his side with the safety still on. Dean was more into pretending to be an FBI agent sweeping the rooms, peeking around each doorway and checking closets before announcing that the house was empty.

Sam resisted the urge to throw some sarcastic words Dean's way, and instead went back to a windowless study that had caught his eye during the initial pass down the hallways. There were books and a gun safe and shelves packed tight with the sort of collection that only a hunter would have. Jars labeled as grave dirt or willow ash. Tattered munition boxes held together by tape and loosely filled with small bones and silver bullets. There were notes all over the desk and along the far wall. The sort of notes that Sam and Dean usually tacked up against walls in motel rooms when a hunt had gotten too complicated to piece together without a map of sorts.

"So at least it looks like we're in the right place?" Dean had gone straight for the gun safe and was looking at the dial. "You think he put his fancy 'kill anything' gun in something this obvious, or you think he hid it away?"

"Depends on how paranoid this guy was I guess." And judging by the fact that there had only been one lock on the front door and no traps that they'd found, Sam was going to say that whoever lived here must have been pretty confident and not nearly as shifty eyed as most of the other hunters that they'd come across.

He watched his brother get to work, ear against the side of the safe as he slowly turned the dial, but Dean's attempts as safecracking could only hold his attention for so long before Sam started leafing through some of the books that had been left out on the desk.

They were journals much like Dad's. Handwritten and methodical. Maps and drawing, polaroids taped into the margins. There were the usual hunts, little dates next to city names and notes about ghosts and ghouls, witches, possessed house pets that had come back from the dead. The last entry was incomplete. Dated less than a week ago. Something up in Nebraska. Something that left empty rooms and murky puddles of blood where people should have been. Something nameless that moved through stone and brick like water, that could be heard behind the load bearing walls in old buildings, mortar or drywall shifting and leaving layers of dust and the smell of earth and rot.

"Dean, does this sound like anything to you?" Sam asked before reading the carefully written block letters that made of a grocery list of supernatural spookiness.

"Nah, man." Dean made a face, still resting his cheek against the safe, still trying to figure out the combination by sound alone. "Hey, if this place is really closed up to angels, then maybe the hunter here had a book somewhere on the feathery dickbags."

Which meant, _please find something else to do while I try to be cool over here_.

Sam would have been annoyed at being brushed off, except he really liked books, and the private collection and a score of handmade books by another hunter was like finding buried treasure. Besides, he'd rather sit and leaf through the stacks of old books for a few hours than actually find the gun that they'd come here for and get back on the road―if 'back on the road' had any chance at all of pointing them in their father's direction.

Mostly it was turning pages, sort of just glancing at the pictures and pausing long enough for details when the images caught his eye as something unfamiliar. Three journals into the collection Dean was giving up on being a safe cracker and had moved on to a more direct approach. Leaving the room and coming back with a crowbar from the car.

"Find anything good yet, Sammy?" He asked as he fit the the bent end of his crowbar along the seam of the door like he did this for a living.

"I don't know who this guy was but played it safe it seems. Didn't go out too often. Didn't go too far from home, but did a lot of research for other hunters and took obsessive notes about it.

"Good," the word coming out as more of a grunt while Dean strained. "Anything look useful you put 'em in the trunk for later."

Sam didn't need to be told. He'd already started making a pile of books that he would take, which felt a little like robbery, but it would be a shame to just leave them behind in an empty home. He went to go get the only other journal that he'd seen on the shelf when he noticed flakey white powder on the back of his right hand. Frowning, he brought it closer to his face, rubbing a finger through the grit. There was some collected in the folds of his sleeve and as he looked around for the source he saw that there was more dust on the desk, a fine layer on the floor where him and Dean had left faint footprints on the carpet. He wanted to chalk it up to the house just being dirty, but that didn't explain why the dust was on _him_ too.

"Dean?"

Metal straining against metal made terrible sounds and Dean hummed under it all. "Mmhm?"

"Dean. Stop messing with that for a second." Sam waited for the noises to dull, for his brother's labored breathing to even out, and Sam listened. Listened for something that had no known sound that he'd be able to recognize.

Silently, in his corner of the room, Dean changed his grip on his crowbar. The tool instantly becoming a weapon as his eyes narrowed and he looked around the cluttered room.

The house groaned. Normal settling sound that you simply hear in old homes. Nothing at all sinister to it, except that it moved from the far side of the house towards where the hunters stood, like a shiver running through a body.

"The fuck is that?" Dean was whispering like he was worried that the creeping noise would hear where they were if he spoke any louder, his eyes fixed on the door that lead out to the hall.

If it had a proper name, Sam didn't know it. He did have a strong inkling that the whatever-it-was might be the reason that the hunter who was supposed to live here was currently MIA. "I think we need to get outside."

Floorboards creaked down the hallway not unlike footsteps, right until the sound moved up the wall to their left and then along the ceiling. The house was breathing around them, shifting, settling.

Dean moved with almost comical slowness away from the corner where the wall met the ceiling and the rafters were groaning like arthritic joints. The safe was all forgotten, same for the journals. The most important thing right now was that this room had no windows and only one door, one long hall between the brothers and the front of the house, and one very concerning sound that was shaking plaster free like snow.

"Run?" Sam mouthed the question, keeping his eyes trained on that corner, not at all sure how menacing it really was. The journal hadn't been too specific on what to expect other than the sounds. Hadn't really given a lot of details on victims other than no bodies had been found. Just blood and in one case a person sized dent in the drywall.

Nodding, the older hunter motioned to the doorway, wanting Sam to go first because it would keep him furthest away from what was somewhere up above them. Now was not exactly the time for Dean to be acting over protective, but there was never really a good time for it. So Sam scooped up the journals that he'd leafed through, hoping that there was something in them that they could use―and he went for the door, slowly so as not to draw attention to himself, and then very quickly as the noise started to shift and follow him.

The smell caught in his lungs as soon as he got out of the study. Dry rot like damp leaves and old graves, and he wondered if it had been there since they first came into the house. He turned a corner too sharp, shoulder instantly protesting the impact, but Sam caught himself and kept going, hearing his brother close on his heels.

Sam hit the front door, porch sliding under his feet and the gravel of the driveway very suddenly pitching up to meet him. He hadn't tripped. He didn't think so at least, and yet there he was all the same, face down, tasting iron. Rocks were cutting into his cheek and he struggled to push himself up, to regain whatever cool he could muster and save some face in front of Dean.

Almost getting up as far as his knees, Sam fell back, heavy, dizzy and cold despite the autumn sun bearing down on the back of his jacket. He hadn't just bit his cheek when he fell. It was worse than that. He could taste the blood in his throat, feel it bubbling from his nose. Something was very wrong.

Dean seemed to understand that though. He was yelling. He was shaking Sam and asking redundant questions.

And Sam was closing his eyes because he didn't have the energy to keep them open anymore.

And Sam was struggling to take a breath that didn't feel like drowning in his own blood.

And then Sam was very, very quiet and very, very still.


	15. Chapter 15

A hunter stood at a crossroad. Not in a metaphorical way like some people did, but in a very literal way. The dirt on his boots and on his car the same color as bone. His eyes were gritty from the long denied need for sleep. There was sweat on his face from digging in the unforgiving ground, and he knew that he was streaked and tattered. Frayed down to his last thread.

Back in Kansas he'd called for help. He'd yelled himself raw and the son of a bitch hadn't answered because apparently he only showed up for his favorites, and the hunter was not on that list. So he'd done what he knew how to. He followed old notes left by his father. He took himself to the first place that he'd seen the devil. Symbols scrawled over the hood of his car in chalk―and when that had done nothing, he defaulted to more old school methods that he'd found in hand written books. Deals with the devil at midnight. Standing at a crossroad and waiting for the bastard to show his face.

He felt like a jackass. A very desperate jackass, but he'd run out of options.

"Come on. Come on you son of a bitch." His voice horse, his chest tight. "I did everything I was supposed to."

"It's a bit overkill if you ask me," the devil didn't really announce himself. He was just there, looking at the sloppy hole that had been loosely filled to hide the box buried there.

"Fuck you. Fuck you, I've been trying to get ahold of you for two days. Where have you been?"

"Busy?" He rolled his eyes, annoyed that he was even being questions. "You know, if you wanted a little alone time, just me and you, you really should have washed up first. At least tried to make a good impression."

The hunter cursed again and pointed at his car, his hand only shaking a little. "My brother is dead, you son of a bitch."

The devil's eyes went wide, all emotion bled from his face.

"So where the hell have you been?"

"I was… I was busy."

"Fix him." His eyes started to burn and every part of him hurt in a way that he hadn't thought possible.

"I can't."

"Screw your little deal, Satan. You've already got a body. You don't need him right now, but I do. So fix him."

"I _can't_." He was holding himself careful, still and unmoving as stone.

"You can. Just like you fixed me; and you can still take his body in a few years, but bring him back now. Right fucking now, do you hear me?"

The devil walked slowly, moving towards the car, peering into the backseat and slowly shaking his head. "If you'd called me days ago maybe I could have done something."

"Don't give me that."

"This isn't the same as it was with you, Dean." His words tight as if he were choosing each one with very deliberate intent. "His soul is long gone."

"Then go get it."

He didn't spend very long looking into the backseat and the very still body beneath the blanket. "Seeing as I'm supposed to still be in the bottom of hell it's really hard for me to just let myself in the front doors of Heaven and announce that I'm there to pick up my prom date."

"I don't care what you fucking tell them. Do you hear me? I'm making you a deal. I know how these things work. I get ten years, you get my soul."

"I don't want your soul."

The hunter had started to tremble. For the sake of his brother in the car he didn't draw a weapon, didn't throw a punch, but he couldn't keep himself from hissing out, "God damn you. I don't have anything else to bargain with."

"It's not a better offer that I'm looking for here. I'm telling you that I can't go up and get your brother. I can't fix this."

"You're an archangel. You're supposed to be able to do fucking anything, _anything_ , so man up and fucking do this thing." Anger and pain were interchangeable at this point. "I'm begging you―and I don't beg."

"I'm going to use little words to get through to that little brain of yours," emotion finally cutting into his voice, but it was condescending and that wasn't particularly helpful. "I left my grace behind when I left Hell. Almost every bit of it. For all intents and purposes I'm not an archangel anymore. I'm not really even an angel at this point; and if Heaven finds out that I snuck out of my room past my bedtime they are going to lose their shit. Do you understand?"

"I don't care. Do _you_ understand?"

The devil cast his pale gaze onto the dusty old car, but he was falling empty again, like a shell of a man. No life behind his eyes.

"If you don't fix him then you can't have his body later." The hunter was growing desperate, not at all caring that it corroded his words. "No him smiling at you. No more flirting. No more falling in love with a dirty human."

Slowly, the devil turned to face him.

"Yeah, I could hear you two talking while I was in the shower. You've got it as bad for him as he has it for you, _Luci_. You think there's anyone else in the world that's going to put up with your bull shit? With my bull shit? No. It's just him. There isn't anyone else like him and there never will be. So fuck Heaven, fuck all the other angels that are going to piss their pants when they see you, and fix my baby brother."

There were no crickets out this time of year. No sounds. Just the two of them and the soft crunch of dirt under the devil's feet as he came close to the hunter.

"You really want to make this deal with the devil, the full moon as our only witness?"

Weak, the hunter nodded, trying not to let himself hope too much. "Give me my brother and ten years, that's all I fucking want. You can take us both at the end. I don't care. Just bring him back."

"I still don't want your soul, Dean."

He pressed a hand through his hair, smearing dirt and wanting to just sob in frustration. "I already told you I don't have anything else to trade."

"You do." The devil spared one last glance at the car. "I'm offering the same deal I offered your brother for you-"

"You want a kiss?"

"I try to keep things consistent when I can."

"Fuck you, you weird son of a bitch." He choked on relief that sounded very much like laughter. "You bring my brother back I'll do a hell of a lot more than kiss you."

"Just a kiss." He held his hands out like an innocent man. "Don't go making it weird."

The hunter didn't know that the devil prefered to take payment on these sorts of things after he'd done his part. The hunter just pulled the taller man down and pressed their mouths together. Lingering, gratitude in the slide of his hands through the devil's hair, in the sweep of his tongue, and in the cut of his teeth.

Their foreheads knocking, the devil almost chuckled but it was slightly breathless. "What is it with you Winchesters? Your brother, and your father, and now you? You boys can't keep your hands or mouths to yourselves." He did laugh then, stepping back, the humor almost touching his eyes. "I was joking about your father, but the look on your face is worth it."

"I hate you."

"Yeah, most people do."

"Am… am I supposed to wait here?"

"Go somewhere. It doesn't matter. Pray to me when you get there." He shook his head the slightest bit, easy to miss because it wasn't for the man watching him, but for himself and what he'd just agreed to do. "This might take a while, but if I make it back I'll find my way to you."

"...what do you mean ' _if_ '?"

"It means exactly what it sounds like, big boy." He winked at the hunter, but there was no smile to accompany it―and then he was gone.

And the hunter was left alone with not much more than hope and a corpse, but it was better than what he'd come here with.


	16. Chapter 16

Sam came awake like he was drowning. Coughing blood like water. Every muscle, every nerve, every joint in him aching in protest at the mere thought of movement. Exhaustion like he'd never felt before; he felt like he'd spent a week straight digging up graves and burning corpses. He _smelled_ like he'd spent a week straight digging up graves and burning corpses. The taste in the back of his throat, under the blood and dirt, made him gag. His eyes were heavy, swollen and dry. He couldn't see. He could hardly breathe. Moving made him want to sob.

All he really had were smears of memory. Of something in the walls and Dean yelling at him and this ache like he'd gone ten rounds as someone's least favorite punching bag.

Hands were touching Sam, gripping him around the shoulders, and his half maddened brain took over, animal instinct and self preservation brought him up swinging. Lashing out, his clumsy fists hitting something solid that sounded a lot like his brother.

Choking as his lungs burned for want of enough air, Sam blindly gripped the person over him. Words lost and just fumbling to find something familiar under the pain and panic.

"Hey, hey," Dean's voice was threaded with releaf and something too close to fear. "Hey, Sammy. You're ok. You're ok. I got you, man. I got you."

Sam was being hugged. His face pressed into the rough curve of his big brother's shoulder, and it hurt. It was too tight a hug, but something in Sam kept him from pulling away or protesting. He just went lax and tried to calm his rabbiting heart.

"Fuck, man." Dean continued to whisper profanities and words of comfort in equal amounts. "Say something. Can you talk?"

Sam found his voice and it tasted of old death and iron, rasping like dry leaves. "What the hell was that?"

"I― I don't know, man. Whatever the hell was in that house. You're ok now. You're fine." It was hard to figure out if he was trying to convince Sam or himself.

"Did we get it?"

"Fuck no, we didn't get it." Dean laughed and it sounded broken. He was pulling away from Sam, holding him by the shoulders and swearing a bit more before scrubbing at his baby brother's face with a sleeve. Trying to clean him in a way that wasn't even close to gentle. "We got the hell out of there."

"Are we― Dean, _stop it_ ― are we still in Kansas?"

Ignoring the protests, he kept wiping dried blood from Sam's face. "No. We're uh, we're actually up in South Dakota. Almost made it all the way to Bobby's… I didn't know where else to go."

"How long have I been out?" Though it felt like trying to pry open a walnut his his fingertips, he managed to crack open an eye and look up at his brother.

"Dude… you've been dead for three god damned days."

And Sam wished that that news was a bit more surprising or unbelievable, but he honestly _felt_ like he'd been dead for a few days so it was hard to argue. The 'dead' part wasn't what he had questions about. It was the fact that he was currently drawing breath and feeling every rough corner and bump and scrape that had him worried and confused. "H-how?"

"Your boyfriend." Dean frowned and for a second he looked out the window at the open, pale sky.

It gave Sam long enough to realise that he was laying in the backseat of the Impala. Judging by the quality of light it was either early morning or early evening, not that that mattered as much everything else that was apparently going on.

Giving a soft sigh, Dean shook his head and turned back to Sam. "Dude, he was like creepy Prince Charming waking Sleeping Beauty. Except you both looked like hell and I got to learn that I don't like watching Satan kissing my dead baby brother."

Shaking, his hands barely willing to follow his orders, Sam used the edge of his shirt to scrub the inside of his mouth, trying to get the taste of death out. He didn't know how to process any of this. Gratitude? Fear? Cheated? He'd been dead for Christ's sake. Where was his tunnel of light? Where was his creepy Prince Charming?

"Come on." Dean was half sitting out of the car. One leg curled under him in an effort to fit in the backseat with his brother. "Let's get to Bobby's. Get you a shower. Burn your clothes. I-I need to sleep, man. Maybe hug you a bit more when you don't smell like you've been sleeping in a tauntaun."

"You do love your chick flick moments." Sam tried to smile because it was expected of him, but every inch of him still felt wrong. So very wrong and sore and just god awful. He half watched his brother pull himself up from the backseat, no doubt to go around to the driver's side and get them back on course. Before he managed to close the door behind him Sam caught a glimpse of something very strange out on the road side.

"Wh- what is... oh my god. Dean!"

Dean grew still, and turned around just enough to look slightly guilty. "Yeah?"

"What the fuck did you do to him?" Unsteadily Sam tried to slide from the backseat of the car to where Lucifer was sprawled out among the withered grass and brush along the turnout they'd parked it. The devil was laying in blood, possibly his own if the deep and chaotic cuts on his arms were any indication. He was bruised and filthy and not moving and that screaming well of panic and bad rushed back into Sam like it had never left.

"I didn't do nothing to him. He was like that when he got here." Dean almost defended himself, trying to shrug it off, and rather easily keeping Sam from getting out of the car with only a hand to his very weak shoulder. "I don't know what happened. Son of a bitch just put your soul back in you and fucking collapsed."

Sam strained against his brother though it got him nowhere at all, he was still too weak to do more than shift a few inches. "And you were going to leave him here?"

"Well… yeah?"

"Dean!"

"He's the devil, man. Worst case scenario: he dies out here and what? The world is short one Satan? How is that a bad thing?"

Something was wrong with Sam. Something more than the obvious. He wanted to cry. Looking at the cut up and battered archangel laying in the dirt, odd heavy shadows over him like a blanket, the slope of his back bearly rising and falling, Sam just wanted to cry.

Instead he got to ride in the backseat with the devil cradled against his chest while every bump and bruise and awful ache in his body protesting every pothole and gravel road that the car rambled over. It wasn't a long drive and while they went Sam's eyes cleared and the sun climbed above the tree line. It helped him to see the damage done to Lucifer. At first glance it had looked like a wild animal with hungry jaws had been teething on him, but it was worse than that. Shallow cuts. Too, too many of them. As if someone had attempted to write a sonnet on his skin with a switchblade. Blood had soaked through his shirt as well, and when Sam carefully peeled back the damp cloth he got an eyeful. Something else had been dug in there, the devil's pale skin etched with a symbol that meant a whole lot of nothing to Sam other than anger.

Bobby met them on his porch, judging by his scowl he seemed to have had some kind of warning that the boys were coming. He was worried and he showed it how he usually did. "What did you idjits get messed up in this time?"

"Sam got himself killed."

The old man's brows raised behind the brim of his baseball cap, he watched Sam struggling to get out of the back of the Impala while holding onto Lucifer. "He's looking better than I'd usually expect for a dead man." He set down his beer on the porch railing and came over. No more questions, he just helped get an arm around Lucifer and let Dean do the majority of manhandling Sam.

Lucifer got dropped on the couch, because he was surprisingly very heavy and Bobby apparently wasn't interested in dragging the unconscious man upstairs to one of the bedrooms.

Not really able to hold himself upright under his own power, Sam was forced to lean heavily on his big brother and it meant that he had to fight to edge towards the couch.

"Nope." Dean didn't have to put too much effort into keeping Sam in one place. "You need to get that corpse stink off of you, and then you―"

"He needs help, Dean."

"Dude, you can't even stand on your own, what the hell do you plan to do?" Dean was oh so easily dragging Sam towards the bathroom. "If he was going to die he'd have done it on the road or in the car. He'll keep."

Sam would have kept fighting, like a man desperately trying to swim against a strong current, except Bobby stepped in.

"Go get yourself cleaned up, son. I'll see to the pretty mess on the couch for you."

Bobby was good people.

And for some reason Sam smelled like he'd been dead for three days. Knowing the man who'd saved his life was in good hands, he let himself be guided to the bath and he even let Dean turn on the tap for him. He did not let his brother undress him however―he was broken and weak, but not a toddler.

"Damn it, Dean. I'm fine." He pushed his brothers hands away and figured out his own blood crusted T-shirt and jacket. Lots of bruises, lots of pain with each tiny shift of his joints, but it seemed that whatever damage had been done to him was all internal, all aches anchored down in his long bones and muscles.

Dean was all nervous energy and frowns that made deep lines on his face, aging him with worry. "You were dead."

"And now I'm not." Sam tried to play it off, but all he could do was remember how he'd felt gutted and helpless when sitting beside a hospital bed not too long ago. He didn't have to try and imagine what his Dean must have gone through, watching him die, feeling completely alone for the first time in his life as he watched his brother simply stop being. "Dean, I… I'll be ok. It's just a shower."

"Yeah." He dipped his head, running a hand through his hair and coming back up with a tight smile. "Yeah. I'll get you some clothes from the car."

"And see if Bobby needs any help?"

The look his brother gave him was one of long suffering, but he nodded again and left Sam to his well needed shower.

It was hard but not impossible to bathe when Sam's body didn't even want to move. The heat from the water running over him did little to ease the stiffness and the pain, but when he sat on the edge of the tub to rest while he dried himself, he saw two small white pills sitting atop the stack of clothes that had been left for him on the edge of the sink. He silently thanked the universe that Dean had no intention of ever stopping looking after him.

Getting back to the couch was somehow worse than getting clean. At least for showering he'd been able to just stand there and let the water pressure do most of the work. Now he had to walk and his knees and ankles kept rolling and protesting his need for them to keep him upright―but the wall was there for him. The wall was his new best friend.

As he slowly shambled closer to his family he could hear Bobby asking, "He another hunter?"

"Nah. He's…" Dean laughed, like he thought what he was about to say was real funny. "Believe it or not this son of a bitch here is an Angel."

"No shit?" Bobby sounded impressed, which was rare.

Sam was just relieved that for once his brother had chosen not to call the devil his boyfriend. All of this was going to be a bit hard to explain to the old man without getting into the bit where Sam had inappropriate feelings about Satan.

"Not exactly what I was picturing when you read about 'em in books, but sure."

Rolling himself around the corner, Sam saw that the other two had stripped Lucifer down to the waist and had bandaged everything that was fit to bandage. The man still looked like hell warmed over, but at least he'd been cleaned up at little.

Head just a little clearer now, it was distressing to realize that the uneven and heavy shadow Sam had seen out on the road were still draped around Lucifer like wounded things. One up over the back of the couch, the other spilling across the rug and under Dean's feet. The strange and intangible shapes hadn't made any sense an hour ago and they made less sense now. Until one of them twitched and the movement sent up a spark of recognition.

Wings. Sam was seeing the shadows of wings. It was the size of them that had thrown him off. You just don't expect to come face to face with a twenty foot wingspan. Certainly not indoors and not attached to human shaped things like the devil.

Either the other two hunters couldn't see them, or Dean was really that much of an ass because he continued to stand on one of them while it kept twitching sporadically.

"Hey," Sam cleared his throat and so easily summoned his brother to his side, all it took was letting his weakness show despite how much he wanted to try and hide it.

Dean slipped an arm around his shoulders like it belonged there. A half of a hug when he was obviously restraining himself. "Feelin' any better?"

Honestly? "No. Not really."

"Well, you smell better at least." He grinned and under all that relief and joy was a resounding need for sleep that he'd obviously been denying himself until Sam was right again.

And it didn't really matter that Sam had been out for days, sleep actually sounded pretty damn good. "Bobby, is it ok if we crash here for a little bit?"

The old hunter had been quietly watching the angel splayed out on his couch, but he glanced in the direction of the brothers when he heard his name. "Boys, you've had your beds made in your room since before Sammy was talking in full sentences. Get some sleep. Just don't expect me to make you breakfast in the morning."

"We'll fend for ourselves." Dean kept that grin in place, beaming like everything was right for the first time in his life. "Thanks."

"Yeah, yeah." Bobby jerked a thumb in the direction of the couch and it's lone occupant. "How much trouble's he gunna be if he wakes up?"

"I'll keep him upstairs with me―" Sam said a little too quickly. "Just so, um, when he wakes up and doesn't know where he is he'll at least see a familiar face."

Bobby let it slide, not even batting an eye. Dean however? Dean looked at him like a father whose son had just announced that he planned to drop out of law school to be a professional unicyclist.

Sam not only did not apologize. He made his brother help him get Luci up the stairs.

And Dean didn't exactly deposit the devil gently onto Sam's old bed. He just sort of dropped him like you would a bag of dirty laundry.

Wincing, Sam tried to keep the need from his pinched voice. "Please be careful with him."

" _Be careful with him_ ," Dean mocked softly before folding his arms over his chest. "You need me to tuck him in and kiss him goodnight too, or you got it all taken care of?"

"Shut up."

"Who gets to be the big spoon and who's the little one?"

It was a shame that they couldn't just keep basking in the joy of Sam being among the living once more. They had to always come right back here instead. "You're the one who summoned him up to save me. And apparently he did. Maybe give him a break."

Apparently Dean still hadn't fully made up his mind as to whether or not he liked the devil. His every conflicting feelings so open for scrutiny. "Yeah he kept up his side of the deal, but that doesn't mean that you've got to play doctor with him now."

"Deal?" Confused, Sam frowned, leaning against the dresser as he felt his knees start to give out again. He'd been standing too long. "What _deal_?"

A tiny war broke out in Dean, his face hiding nothing as it went from something like embarrassment and then slightly offended; and in the end he simply refused to give a real answer. "What did you tell me after the son of a bitch brought me back to life? A bit of mystery between us is healthy?"

If Sam kept on frowning as deeply as he was then his face was bound to get stuck. He hated the idea of Dean making secret deals with Lucifer… which was probably exactly how his brother had been feeling for years now.

Dragging Sam's soul back here? Wherever Lucifer had gone, whatever he'd gone through to get it, had broken him to the point that he'd been unconscious for hours, not responsive beyond an occasional twitch. What sort of thing would Dean have to trade for Lucifer to be willing to half kill himself?

Sam would rather not speculate on it.

"You know what? We can argue about it after we're both feeling better." After they'd both had some proper sleep.

Rolling his eyes, Dean kicked off his boots and just collapsed down on the second bed. "Just sayin' right now, for the record, that I don't care that you've got yourself a little twin sized bed over there. You're not crawling in with me when you get tired of snuggling Satan there."

"Wasn't planning on it."

Giving one very long and meaningful look at the devil that was spread out over the other bed, Dean just gave a soft, " _mmhm_ ," like there was no possible way that Sam could fit over there or that he'd even want to. And then he was rolling over, giving his little brother his back and getting comfortable.

Moving as slow as his body wanted him to, Sam went to his bed and sat on the edge of it, gently prodding and scooting Lucifer over towards the wall until there was enough room for him to lay down behind the other man. The fact that Sam's feet hung off the edge of the mattress was not the only thing making this awkward. He'd have still been cramped if he'd been alone on the bed that had been too small for him since he was a teenager. Company only made it extra confining. He ended up on his side, facing Lucifer's shoulder, struggling and giving up on finding the best way for them to both fit. This was it. This was them now. _Best_ was no longer being factored in.

So for the record, if Dean had honestly wanted to know, Sam ended up being the big spoon.

He'd meant to sleep, but his mind wasn't tired, just his body. So he lay there, listening to Dean start to softly snore, and just found himself watching the way that Lucifer kept drawing shallow even breaths.

Could angels fall into comas?

Was Lucifer just as tired as Dean from whatever he'd been up to?

Should they be more worried?

Sam was fairly certain that he couldn't worry much more even if he tried.

And it was stupid, because you don't go around worrying about an ageless creature who'd been around since before time itself existed properly. You just don't. But aside from an occasional twitch at the corner of his mouth, or the smallest jerk of his head, Lucifer hadn't moved since fixing Sam. Hadn't acknowledged being dragged to and from the car, or poked and prodded on the couch, or being carried like a bride up the stairs before being thrown at a bed.

Why wouldn't Sam worry?

"I hope you're just hibernating or something until you feel better," Sam whispered, close enough to Lucifer that he could feel his own words bounce back to him. He lightly touched the other man's bare back, following the line of a bruise that spanned from one sharp shoulder blade to the other. "It's not like there's an angel hospital we can take you to."

The day was creeping steadily towards afternoon and light was spilling in through the open curtains beside the bed. It made the shadows that fell from Lucifer's back a little sharper, more defined. Sam couldn't feel anything wing-like as he pressed the flat of his hand carefully along the bruises or when he followed the line of shadow that curled around the other man and butted up against the wall in a confusing jumble. Maybe the air around that strange place felt a little different, like pushing his fingers through lake water. Cold and with a touch of resistance―but that could just as easily be Sam's imagination at work.

He wondered what had changed between them.

If he could see what he was seeing because he'd been dead, or if it was because Lucifer was so far gone.

For some reason that he chose not to think too hard about, Sam pressed his cheek to the other man's back, along his spine between the hook of his shoulder blades and just breathed. Taking in the strange scent of him and trying to pretend that today was not an exceptionally strange day.

Sleep eventually came for him, and his dreams were different. Of all things, he dreamt that he was sleeping. Too tired to move or really open his eyes beyond a muddled glimpse of the room. His brain hadn't been more creative in its offering of a dreamscape than to give him the very same place that he'd fallen asleep. Those same aches and battered feelings still deep in his bones.

Lucifer was at the foot of the bed, sitting up but curled forward over his knees like he was pressing himself into a ball.

The archangel was speaking so softly to himself, that familiar rise and fall of his voice oddly soothing to Sam despite the fact that he didn't understand the words. The language was odd, and yet the meaning felt clear to Sam's sleeping mind in the way that things always seemed to sort of make sense in dreams. The devil way praying―but who to and _why_ the devil would pray wasn't covered in the particulars of this lucid dream.

Sam lay there, very aware of the fact that he was still dreaming, waiting for the next thing to happen, because things always happen in dreams. They were supposed to drift from one disjointed moment to the next, but nothing was happened. So he fought against the persistent pain that felt as natural to him as breathing, and pushed himself up on one elbow. "Hey, you're not dead?"

When Lucifer turned to look at Sam his eyes were dark and bruised like smears of ink, his smile not even coming close to reaching them. "Hey. _You're_ not dead."

"No. I guess not." Sam reached out, but the other man was sitting too far away to touch. "Are you ok?"

"Not even close."

Sam wanted to ask what he could do to help, but even in his dreams he knew that there wasn't anything he could do to fix whatever had happened. All he had to offer was a quiet place to rest and heal. "Come here."

Wearing something between a frown and a confused smile, Lucifer obliged. Carefully laying back on the mattress beside Sam, adjusting slowly so that he was on his stomach, arms tucked beneath his chest like he hoped to keep them safe. Something that by all rights should have hurt the bandaged cuts that he was putting his weight on, but he seemed happy about his position.

It was frightfully easy to lay back down beside this man. Even in his dreams Sam wanted nothing more than to be close to him. In a weird sort of way it was actually easier to not fight it, after all, it was just a dream and that meant that there would be no proper waking repercussions for slipping. He curled along Lucifer's side, pulling an arm around him and using his shoulder like a pillow.

The devil winced, noticeably flinching as he drew a small, sharp sound through his teeth.

"Sorry," Sam pulled away. "Did I… are you, um…"

"You can lean on me… I don't mind," that confused little smile still very much in place. "Just not right there."

Sam surveyed his options and sighed. "Well if you can find a place that isn't coverd in your big dumb wings I'll gladly lay there."

Body arching up just a touch, Lucifer's eyebrows drew low. "You can see them?"

"Only the shadows?" It still confused Sam. "I don't know. It's weird. They're weird. Can't you tuck 'em up or something so they're not laying everywhere?"

The shadows actually shifted then, like a hand spasm or the way that you sometimes jump when you're half fallen asleep. Lucifer winced and softly shook his head, not apologizing for the mess, but simply deciding 'no' they couldn't be moved in fact.

"They're hurt aren't they?"

"I'd go so far as to say they're broken. Again." So conversational in just the way that you don't expect someone with broken bones to be.

"I…" Sam considered this dream and how it should go. "You want me to see if I can… if I can reset them or something?"

Lucifer looked at him long and hard, his frown slowly deepening. "You want to _what_ now?"

"I've reset Dean's arm before when he's broken it. A few times actually. I mean, I'm not a doctor―but I must really be worried if I'm dreaming about you being this hurt. So let me try and help? It'll probably be cathartic or something for me."

That look of the devil's turned strange, drifting back towards confused but also a little untrusting this time. Still he said after some more hesitation, "You'll have to excuse me if I don't jump at the chance to let you manhandle my broken body."

"Wow, hell of a lot of confidence you've got in me. Thanks." Sam did his best to sit up properly, the movement difficult on such a small bed with such little room to maneuver. "I'm good at these kinds of dreams. I promise I won't pull them off or anything."

Lucifer's eyes had gone a touch wide while his mouth became a thin and unhappy line.

"Come on."

"I… suppose that if you can trust me with your soul I can trust you with this." He didn't sound like he meant it, though. It was all too close to a question and a hell of a lot of reluctance, but he half turned his face away from Sam and wings simply came into being. Wings to make the shadows make sense. Wings that looked like they'd been deep red at some point but had been left out too long in the sun and had grown bleached and brittle. Lucifer was one of those birds from a wildlife rescue documentary about oil spills or animal neglect. The kind that's meant to tug at the heartstrings because look at these poor, injured, filthy, little creatures.

All that glorious sun light spilling in through the window over the matted blood stained things, with feathers missing in places and one very sharp, pale bone exposed and reaching upward like a crooked finger, painted a rather violent picture.

"Oh my god―" Sam felt sympathy pains, his own back twinging. "What did you do?"

Looking down at his pillow, his words were muffled by cloth and some strange emotion. "Was dragging that pretty lil' soul of yours down from Heaven an' my brother took my by the wings and tried to pull me back."

So careful, Sam smoothed a hand over the wing nearest him, moving up towards the compound fracture but not touching the bone or where it had broken skin. The feathers weren't as soft as he'd expected. Not at all like petting a bird and much more like touching something ill and filthy. Blood flaked under his hands, gritty, dust coming loose and falling soundlessly onto the blankets. Though the wings seemed to flinch under his touch, retreating, Lucifer was still. Forcibly still. The muscles in his back and shoulders tight.

"Listen, on a normal day I'd be all about the petting, but…"

"But stop poking at it?" Sam offered as an end to that thought.

He chuckled in a strained way, teasing. "It would be very undignified for you to see me start crying."

Sam smiled. He liked the ease at which they could talk when it was just a dream. The devil's jokes making him laugh when he'd usually only scowl. "Yeah. Alright. I'm going to... _mmhn_ , just lay real still, ok? I'll do it on the count of three."

To be honest, if this were real and waking life, he wouldn't have attempted anything so stupid. But in a dream? Sure. Popping a wing back together couldn't be much different than those times he'd reset Dean's arm.

His hands closed down on either side of the break, steadying the lightly twitching wing and himself. "One. Two―" and he pulled, tugging the compounded halves of the bone back to where they belonged. Settling them against one another how they should have always been.

Lucifer mouthed a very undignified whimpering sort of noise into his pillow. Something between a groan and a sob as he stayed face down, the muscles in his shoulders trembling.

"Ideally I would put a splint on it to keep it from moving around, but you can just use your angel magic to fix it up now."

One pale eye found him, the devil's face so stricken with pain, his voice stilted. "Yeah. _Angel magic_. I'll be sure to get right on that one."

"Don't be difficult like you always are." Sam instructed as he gently helped to fold those long wings down the devil's back, before laying down, tucking his own arms against his chest as he settled in on his side, facing the other man.

"Are you sure you didn't pull one of them off?"

Sam laughed again. "Promise." He touched his chin to Lucifer's shoulder, not nearly as close as he'd usually be when dreaming of this man, but this all seemed to be a different flavor, so different touching was called for.

"Don't take it personal," Lucifer was choking on the words, but still he pressed on, "I don't think I like you anymore."

"Oh, come on." The suggestion made Sam laugh. This whole dream was so carefully built around one little fact that he'd not been really willing to acknowledge when he'd been awake. "Just look how worried I am about you right now."

"You do sound _so_ very sympathetic." Sarcasm made his words thick.

"I mean in _real life_.You're all unconscious and hurt and not waking up. I must be really, really worried about you. Because here we are like this," he losely gestured to how they were pressed so closely on the narrow bed, "when usually by this point in the dream you'd be fucking me sideways. Instead I've got your blood on my hands and you take up so much room so I can't get comfortable and I just want to hold on to you until you feel better."

That long hard look came back, tempered slightly by the way that pain still narrowed his gaze and sweat had beaded along his forehead and neck. "I hate to rock the boat, you beautiful boy, but this isn't a dream. I can't sleep. I don't have dreams."

Sam rolled his eyes as his mind made bad jokes. " _My_ dream, you ass. Not yours―"

"And usually I'd let you run that mouth," he mumbled under Sam's word like a baseline. Hardly heard and easy to ignore. "But I have this feeling that the longer you talk the more angry you're going to be at me later."

"―which is why you have such pretty pink wings, and no shirt." Sam slipped a hand along the small of Lucifer's back, doing his best to get comfortable and ignoring the small protests.

The room was warm, but that might have had less to do with the weather outside and more to do with being crammed into a bed beside another person, close enough that not touching was not an option. The shared heat between them oddly soothing to the young hunter. Easing over those pockmarks and pain worn edges.

The relief was not universally felt, not if Lucifer arching uncomfortably under Sam's hand was any indication. "Not that I don't love all the extra touching and you calling me pretty―but the more you keep talking like that the more awkward this is going to get. For you. Not for me. For me this is hilarious."

A seed of doubt started to take root in Sam.

"If I didn't feel like I might actually be dying, I'd be laughing. Giggling and kicking my feet like a little schoolgirl."

Sam tried to wake himself. Lucid dreams were as easy to step out of as they were to shift and bend to what he wanted to make of them. But if he was really being honest with himself he'd never been able to mold this dream to how he'd expected it to go, and now try as he might he wasn't waking up.

Couldn't wake because he wasn't really dreaming.

He was however, having a spectacularly bad day of his own making.

Embarrassment like a weight slammed him in the chest and very slowly Sam pulled his arm back, doing his best to put as much space as possible between him and the other man. It was a bit too late to feign innocence, and Sam wondered if he'd be able to get away with closing his eyes and pretending that he was unconscious.

It was impossible to tell if the devil was blinking or winking, still mostly face down in his pillow with only one eye visible. "You _like_ me," he sang softly.

"I do not."

"You're _worried_ about me."

"Shut up."

"You think I'm _cute_."

"I never said that."

The devil hummed softly, little uneven notes strung together in a tune that only he knew. "I like you too, Sam. Even if you tried to pull one of my wings off."

"I just reset the bone… you can fix it now." Sam wasn't sure why exactly the 'fucking me sideways' comment wasn't being brought up as exhibit one in the long list of damning evidence against him, but if they were going to talk about anything else he was really, really on board.

"Yeah, if I had any of that _angel magic_ in me then I'd get right on it."

"You don't―"

"Sam, I don't want to talk about this. We're not going to talk about this." He instructed with no strength at all behind the words. "I'm going to close my eyes and just bath in this exquisite pain while I try to keep from crying and dry heaving―and those are in no particular order. I haven't made up my mind yet which is the priority."

Wincing, Sam struggled to find anything good or worthwhile to say. For lack of better options he gently put his chin back on Lucifer's shoulder. "Is… is this still ok?"

"Yeah." That one dim blue eye that had been so focused on Sam finally closed, close enough to peaceful that it could pass. "Yeah, that's ok."

Resting against a shoulder certainly wasn't as good as pressing his face into the center of the other man's back, but the idea of putting his cheek against the ragged things that almost passed for wings made him cringe. As soon as Sam had the energy to move he was going to wash them, and splint them, and maybe try to talk the devil into seeing if pain meds worked on angels. Regardless if Luci wanted him to or not.

Dean had instilled in Sam a need to take care of other people, and Lucifer was very close to being people.

.:.

"You called me, I'm here―and brother, you sure do know how to ask for big favors."

Someone was talking. A voice that Sam didn't recognize. He tried to open his eyes, but this wasn't the same disjointed sort of near sleep feeling that he'd had earlier. This was different. This was unnatural. Like a hand was clamped down over his wakeup switch and all he could do was listen.

"You have any idea what a mess you've caused? Because Heaven and Hell and everything in between are losing their collective minds over _The Devil_ being out of his little timeout box."

Lucifer answered, soft and slightly defensive. "I had a good reason."

"Is that there your 'good reason'? That hot piece of ass worth all this trouble?"

"It's not like that."

"Kid must be one hell of a lay if you're willing to throw away a few thousand years of hiding."

"It's not like that." The defensiveness in Lucifer grew as he repeated himself. "He's… he's… oh shut up, Gabe. No one likes you."

" _Ohh, y_ ou're losing your touch."

"Michael snapped one of my wings in half, you'll have to let the bad comebacks slide this one time."

The unknown visitor hissed in something close to pain. "Yeah, well, ok. I guess I can give you a free pass. Just for today. But only because you look like hell and not because I'm in any way, shape, or form alright with you keeping a pet human… or two."

"That's the older brother. We don't talk about him. Or look at him. I'm wearing him down, but he still hates us."

"Everyone hates us. Which begs the question why you turned yourself in for one measly human being."

"Look, if you met him, if you could just talk to him then maybe you'd get it... and then… and then you could explain it to me, because I sure as hell don't know what I'm doing." There was a borderline desperation in Lucifer's words, and it hurt Sam to hear.

"Oh wow. Wow, Luci. I'm going to chalk that up to the pain talking."

"He calls me 'Luci' too."

A bit of silence stretched in to the room and Sam was left to lay there, curled on his side in wonder and confusion and a collection of bad sorts of feelings that he didn't want to put names to for fear of giving them too much power over him.

"Exactly how hard did Michael ring your bell, sweetie?"

"I―" grumbling, the exact kind that you'd expect when a guy with too much pride tells you he lost a fight. "You know that if I had my grace he wouldn't have been able to do more than spit on me."

"Apparently, Michael handed you your ass on a silver platter."

"I was carrying a soul and trying to get out as fast as I could. Any other day and any other state of being I would have fucked him up right back."

"From what I've been hearing through the grapevine you actually banished yourself and a half dozen others right out of heaven just to get away."

Lucifer grunted and grumbled some more before saying in a clipped voice, "I wrote _a_ banishing sigil, for myself. If it messed up anyone else's day then I guess they were just collateral damage."

"I'd be lying if I said that things hadn't gotten boring without you around."

Lucifer chuckled, a soft rumble of a sound that the other man echoed with more enthusiasm.

"Well, it's too late to undo it now, right?" And for whatever it was worth, the devil only sounded ever so slightly sad about that fact. "So, Gabe, are you going to help me or not?"

"You're my big brother. I'd follow you to the ends of the Earth, provided that snacks are included, you know that. But I'm pretty sure that you're about to ask me to go spelunking down into Hell to get your grace for you, and I'm really curious how you plan on making this one up to me."

"We'll work something out."

The other man was laughing again, something tight and a little manic working its way in. "Yeah, well. It's not exactly neutral territory down there, so give me a few days… you, uh, you going to be ok in the meantime?"

"I'll have them put up some warding up around the house just in case―"

"More warding than what you've already carved into your arms?"

"Look, don't give me this right now. Mistakes were made. Regrets had. And I'd fucking do it again, just the same, because of this right here."

" _Really_?" This other man, who could only be another angel, seemed very sceptical of whatever Lucifer had deemed worthy of his downfall. "I mean, if you say so, man. No accounting for tastes, am I right?"

"I told you, if you met him then you'd understand."

The man threw Lucifer's words right back at him. "And then I could explain it to you?"

And they seemed to hit home with something very close to defeat. "...I wish _someone_ could."


	17. Chapter 17

It had either been twenty four or fourty eight solid hours that Sam had slept. All he knew was that it was once again morning when he was opening his eyes, and he felt half starved. His growling stomach being the thing that finally pulled him away from confusing dreams of dusty rafters and unstable support beams in old houses.

He lay there too long, watching Lucifer sleeping beside him. The devil's previously blue eyes were now the color of ash, just dull slivers of non color that stayed unfocused and so very nearly closed. He would have looked dead if it weren't for the faint rise and fall of his back or the ruffle of a feather on those long and limp wings that were still draped messily over the bed and against the wall.

There was only so long he could stare at the other man before his stomach's needs outweighed all else. He slunk from the room, pushing through the dull aches and pains that demanded he stay down.

Dean met him on the stairs with a smile that could only be described as encouraging. "Hey, Sammy. Thought I heard you falling out of bed."

"I'm walking ok." Sam didn't take the helping hand that was offered to him, preferring to cling to the banister. He had his pride.

"Yeah, yeah. For a dead guy you're doing just fan-fuckin'-tastic."

"I'm not dead." He cracked a smile and added on in a bad attempt at a British accent, " _I got better._ "

With an answering grin, Dean nodded down to the ground floor below them. "I'll make up some food for ya' and maybe we can just recoop for a bit; see if you can find _Holy Grail_ on the internet or something. I haven't seen it in years."

"I uh," as tempting as the offer was, " I need to read up on how to splint a broken wing."

Dean grunted and lead the way down to the kitchen, giving Sam all the room he needed to slowly and stiffly navigate the stairs. "You know, I was just sort of assuming that all the pictures were more… more metaphorical with the wings, ya know? Wasn't really expecting your boyfriend to turn into Big Bird while we were sleepin'."

Rolling his eyes, Sam remembered how much he didn't miss this kind of teasing. Then he remembered that they were in Bobby's house. "You wanna' cool it on the whole... " he struggled to find words that he could use that wouldn't give him away.

"Relax. Bobby's out working on someone's old Cadillac. Just came in this morning."

"He's not my boyfriend."

" _Riiight_. He's not your boyfriend... and I'm not tired of watching you undressing him with your eyes for the past year." Dean looked to be gathering the makings of pancakes and bacon. "He's not even that hot."

There were odd times that Sam wondered what he would do if one day when he walked in on Lucifer and Dean going at it. Wondered if it would be his brother or the devil who ended up on his hands and knees begging and moaning around a mouthful of profanities.

It was impossible to tell if the prospect was more disturbing or rage inducing, and the longer he thought about it the more he wished that he could stop thinking about it. It was just how Dean joked about things when he was uncomfortable. It didn't mean anything other than that his big brother didn't like Lucifer and didn't like that Sam liked him even more.

With a desire to be more productive than self pitying, Sam went into Bobby's study and dug around in the stacks of books to see if he could find anything on doctoring wounded birds. Not that an ornithology book would be ideal, but it was a hell of a lot more likely to be in the old man's collection than a book on how to patch busted up Angels.

After not too long Dean brought in a plate of food along with a cup of very black coffee.

Sam glanced up from his books, nothing in his heart but love for his big brother, and offered a very deeply felt, " _Thank you_. That smells amazing."

"Course it does, you haven't eaten anything in a few days. I'm surprised you haven't taken a bite out of one of those books." But Dean looked so pleased by the compliment, a goofy smile spreading over him for just a moment before he narrowed his eyes at the small collection of books that Sam had gathered. "So… uh, you find anything helpful, or are we just going to _wing_ it?"

Sam paused mid bite of syrup soaked pancake, "How long were you working on that one?"

"Came up with it while I was making the coffee." Dean was too smug about his bad pun to show any of the shame that he really should feel. "You know you liked it."

Not wanting to encourage his brother's horrible sense of humor any more than necessary, Sam nodded to the book that he'd been thumbing through. "Mostly it's just saying that we set the break, fold the wing into its 'natural position, and then wrap the bird up in veterinary tape to secure the wing for the next few weeks."

Dean wrinkled his nose, glancing down at the nearest open book with it's neat and tidy diagrams on how to turn a broken bird into a bandaged up little bird burrito. "You thinking ace bandages, or you want me to head into town and find a crap-ton of whatever the hell veterinary tape is?

"It's tape that won't stick to his feathers- and I know it doesn't sound much better than just slapping a little bandaid on it, but we've got to do something and his wings are pretty twitchy so we probably can't just leave it to heal on its own."

"I like how this is just a ' _we'_ thing suddenly. He's not my problem."

"You're the one volunteering to go get vet tape."

For a blissful few seconds Dean sputtered, struggling to find a comeback. "Yeah, like you're going to give me a moment's peace until your boyfriend's back on his feet."

Sam took a yoga breath. In through his nose, out through his mouth. "I'd rather not have to figure out how to explain to Bobby that the man sleeping upstairs is actually The Devil and really, really _not_ my boyfriend. Can you please just call him something else for a few days?"

" _Mmph_ well, I'll come up with something good to call him. Luci's a stupid name."

"So is Dean."

His brother responded by flipping him off with both hands before heading into the kitchen to clean up whatever mess he'd made.

Sam finished eating the leaning tower of pancakes he'd been given, and went to find the big first-aid kit, the one usually reserved for hunts gone horribly wrong or gunshot wounds that couldn't be taken to the hospital without somehow getting the police involved. The old repurposed army tackle box and the most detailed bird doctoring book that Sam had been able to find were both hauled upstairs with a bit of help from Dean.

"You know, I keep thinking that you look like hell, Sammy... and then I see him and," Dean whistled between his teeth, nodding to the spill of man still taking up nearly every inch of the bed.

It was an honest assessment, and it hurt something in Sam.

He'd never liked seeing other people injured on is account. Not Dean. Not even Dad.

Apparently not Lucifer either.

"And you're sure you didn't do any of this and just forgot to tell me?"

"Dude, you know how fuckin' proud I'd be if I'd beat up Satan?" Dean laughed and dropped his end of the heavy med kit. "You wouldn't be able to get me to shut up about it."

Sam could believe that, though it left them with an uneasy alternative. Parts of an overheard conversation surfaced in Sam's still groggy mind. Something about someone named Michael catching Lucifer by the wings and trying to keep him in place. Sam had read up on more than enough angelic lore in his late teens to understand the implications and to know that they weren't good.

"You want help playing doctor or is this just going to be _special_ time for the two of you?"

"Shut up."

"Dude, it's a legit question."

Even if it was, Dean was being an ass about it. Which meant that obviously Sam was doing well enough that his big brother's natural snark could replace the worry. Something that was as annoying as it was comforting.

"Yeah, I… I could probably use some help seeing as he's not going to be offering any."

"We can just leave him there."

"He's already got blood on the wall and the blankets."

Dean got a little closer to the bed, giving a cursory once over to their 'patient'. "He's bleeding through the bandages Bobby and I put on him?"

Shaking his head, Sam cracked open the box and started rummaging for something that would probably get the dried ick and dirt off of those crumpled wings. It would almost definitely be a waste of time, but he hated the idea of wrapping them up when they were still flaking blood and god knows what else everywhere. "It's the wings. I told you, he's a little twitchy."

There was a lot of skepticism on Dean's face when he simply reached out and ran a hand over the arching long bones closest to him, ruffling feathers and knocking loose a patina of rust colored grit. "You sure they're broken?"

"He was awake for a bit a little after you first fell asleep," Sam's stomach clenched at the casual touching, but he didn't know how to tell his brother to stop petting the devil like he was a house cat. Briefly, he considered trying to wake the unconscious angel before attempting triage, but if Lucifer had slept through the brothers dragging the heavy box over the floor and them arguing, it wasn't likely that he was going to put up much of a fight. "The left one is definitely broken, compound fracture."

Dean simply trusted the non licensed medical opinion, nodding, and carefully straightening some of the longer feathers―or at least attempting to. Somethings were just beyond help.

"Should I―" Sam wasn't sure what to say while watching Dean petting his 'not boyfriend', so he leaned into being an annoying little brother. "Um, you two want to be alone?"

"What? No." Dean looked half guilty and completely annoyed, stepping away from the bed, starting pulling out bandages, and slapping them down onto the blanket. "Fuck you. It's just weird, alright? How often you get to pet a bird?"

" 'm not a bird." Came an answering gumble from the bed.

Sam didn't smile. He made himself not smile, but he was happy to hear the sarcasm all the same. If Lucifer could complain than he couldn't be as bad off as he looked.

One very pale eye was peeking up at the hunters, most of Lucifer's face still hidden in the mattress. "You two chuckle heads mind keeping your paws to yourself? I'm in a delicate state over here."

"We're going to splint your wing," Sam tried to explain.

A strange noise came from the devil, and it might have been a laugh. "That's gunna' be hard pass."

"He wasn't asking you, Tweety." Dean grunted. "And if you think that you're not looking at the most stubborn kid that ever walked the Earth, you've got another thing comin'. I had to grow up with this bull headed son of a bitch. He's splinting the damn wing. It's not like you can stop him, and if you try, I'm tying you to the bed."

If he could overlook the sideways insults, and the borderline innuendo, Sam could almost pretend that his brother was being helpful. Aggressively helpful.

"You know, if I could move you wouldn't be able to get away with making threats like that."

Dean's grin was more tooth than geniality. "Well it's a damn good thing you can't move then, isn't it?"

The soft sound of feathers brushing against each other was the same dry rustle of thumbing through the pages of an old book. Lucifer rolled his shoulders, his back arching as a tremor in the long muscles jolted and spasmed in protest. Through a sharp breath and a flash of teeth Lucifer offered, "Why don't you just go ahead and try it again. I'd love an excuse to hurt you."

There was a lot of huffing and puffing from Dean as he started handing things over to Sam, seemingly willing to let his baby brother do the hard stuff (which was more than fine with Sam). "Not the same song you were singing back at the crossroads, Satan."

One of the perils of having two alpha type personalities in the same room for too long.

Sam decided that he would try and ignore them, unwrapping some little squares of gauze and soaking them in rubbing alcohol―which would be rough on the feathers but they were already about as damaged at they could be so there wasn't any reason to second guess the plan.

"I offer to go find your brother's soul and the next thing I know you're trying to climb me like a tree." It was almost nice how hyper focused Lucifer and Dean were on one another. Glairing and growling.

It sort of made it easier for Sam when he sat on the edge of the bed and gently caught the wing that he'd reset earlier, feather coming loose in his hand and making his grip clumsy―but then again the clumsy could be coming from the weird accusation he was hearing.

"That's not how it went." Dean sputtered, glancing from the bed to Sam, making sure that his brother could hear his defence. "He offered a deal and―"

"Damn hard to offer any deals with your tongue in my―" Lucifer choked on the rest of the words, breath pained and too fast. "Sam. Sam, _stop_."

Sam realised that he'd stopped looking at what he was doing. There were too many brittle feathers on the bed. There was blood on Sam's hand and he wasn't sure how it all got there. "S-sorry."

"Sadist." Lucifer mouthed the word with hardly any air or sound to it.

"Sorry."

"Your brother and John were both surprisingly gentle lovers, which I have to admit I didn't expect from the Winchester men. Apparently I had to go and pick the one who―" Lucifer made a rather unmanly and inhuman sound as he shied away from Sam. "I was joking. I was _joking_."

Tense, Sam very deliberately took his hands away from Lucifer's wings.

He'd been holding on a bit too tightly.

He'd started bending the bone like a strong man in a circus bends a bar of iron.

And he felt like a monster for it.

There was sweat on the back of the devil's neck and along his spine and he was watching Sam with a very complicated expression.

"Sammy, hey." Dean came a little closer. "Why don't you let me―"

"No," Lucifer's pain white eyes focused on the older hunter. "I don't look at you while you're naked and ask if I can pet your delicate parts."

"Come on, man." A hint of angry color had risen to Dean's cheeks. "You're not―"

"I basically am." Luci was still breathing a little too hard, swallowing down whatever pain that Sam had just inflicted. "And you brother can touch me any way that he wants to. But you can't. So play a nice little nurse and hand him more of that awful smelling stuff and let's get this over with."


	18. Chapter 18

Dean had left.

A small blessing.

"You both act like you're five year olds up past your nap time."

"Seeing as I've never been five, I'm taking offence at that."

Sam shook hair from his face, using the crook of his elbow to rub against one cheek because his hands were filthy. "You didn't just start out as unreasonably old, Luci."

"Prove I didn't." Came the challenge.

Sam pushed off the edge of the bed, only to walk a few feet and sink down onto the mattress where his brother had been sleeping. The bit of distance helped ease the simmering anger that soured his stomach―however, sitting across from the object of his quiet rage only made things worse.

"You really think that you are in the right place, or in any kind of shape, to start throwing punches like that?"

For a man who hardly had the strength to sit upright, and who had been bandaged tighter than an extra in a mummy movie, Lucifer sure managed to look real high-and-mighty. "I'm not going to be lectured by you on proper etiquette... and he started it."

" _Really_?"

"He did." The devil stuck his nose on up in the air, which was almost definitely meant to look lofty, but only managed to show off the mottled green bruising that curled around his throat like fingers. "You were there. You heard me tell him not to touch me."

"You're both such _fucking_ children." Sam reserved the right to use salty language at times like this when he felt caustic and so mad that it was hard to string full sentences together.

Lucifer didn't tend to bat an eye at the hunter's insults. Today wasn't an exception. "Do you think that if you hadn't gone into monster hunting that you'd have been a doctor? You have surprisingly kind hands... you know... once you get past the whole almost re-breaking my wing situation."

"Why?" Sam wasn't asking the devil, so much as the universe as a whole. "Why do I put up with you?"

"Because you think I'm charming."

"You're not charming." Sam rubbed the palms of his hands over his knees, scrubbing them against his jeans. "But you are going to apologize to Dean."

"That's not how this works."

"Seeing as the only reason that you're still upright is because I put you there and you can't move on your own, because I wrapped you up tight enough that you can't even take a deep breath, because you can't lift your arms with how badly you're shaking―I'd say you're not really in a position to negotiate."

"You're cute when you think that you're being all threatening." A weak smile twitched against the corners of Lucifer's mouth, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Like a kitten hissing at a grizzly bear."

"Your lip is still bleeding from where he punched you."

The other man sucked in his lower lip, just for a moment, the tip of his tongue flashing. No smiles. No good feelings to be shared. His eyes were hooded, dark with something that wasn't quite anger and wasn't quite pain. "Yeah, well, I bet he'll be walking funny for the next few days."

Probably.

Dean's ability to walk off pain wouldn't have even been brought into question if Sam had been able to react faster when the problem had started―but speed was not an option in his current state.

And the fight had happened very fast.

Sam had been doing his best to keep the broken wing folded down flush along the devil's back while he unwound the second roll of ace-bandages. The pressure must have been some next level kind of pain because Lucifer had almost passed out. Dean, impulsive caregiver that he was, had foolishly darted in and tried to catch Luci before he fell off the bed.

To be fair, Lucifer had said at the start that he didn't want Dean to be touching him, and while keening through a world of pain, his head tucked against the hunter's side, he'd punched Dean in the rather low and unprotected crotch region… probably not out of any specifically malicious intent, but because that had been the only thing to hit in his very limited range.

Naturally, after a lot of swearing, Dean's fist had caught Lucifer right in the mouth, and Sam had had the joy of pulling the two of them apart before things escalated further.

He was too damn tired and too damn sore from his own injuries to be breaking up two grown men who were fighting like they were in a school yard. But Sam did. Because it was the right thing. Because he had complicated feelings for both of these idiots. Because he didn't want to have to play doctor today anymore than he'd already signed up for.

It was a mess.

But no one said that coming back from the dead was going to magically simplify things.

One thing at a time, though. He needed to tackle today one little thing at a time.

"Can you swallow pills?"

Lucifer stopped playing with his lip long enough to frown at Sam. "I'm sure I'm capable. Why?"

"Pain meds," Sam answered and started to rummage into the trunk between the beds. "You need to take something."

"Angels don't need medicine."

"Yeah, well, they probably don't typically need to bleed either." Not that Sam knew all that much about the particulars of angels, but he was willing to bet he was right. He held up a little brown bottle with a peeling label. "So you're going to take one of these, and if in an hour you're still an ass, then you're going to take a second one."

Under a soft sigh of annoyance, Lucifer mumbled to himself, "I wonder if I'm going to start regretting bringing you back to life."

Sam popped open the top of the bottle and shook out two pills, one for him and one for his grumpy friend. "If you don't already, then I'll make sure that you do before Gabriel gets back."

Lucifer went rigid, eyes wide with unease and sudden mistrust.

Wondering what he'd said wrong, Sam frowned, closing his fists around the pills and the bottle. "See, now I know I'm still not firing on all cylinders, but I'm pretty sure that _that_ part wasn't a dream."

"You shouldn't have heard me and him talking."

"Look, it wasn't an intentional eavesdropping. But you and me were sort of laying on each other, so it's not like I got to opt out of listening to you talking to… your brother?" Sam couldn't be positive exactly how that went. He didn't know if angel families worked in the same sort of way as humans, but he faintly remembered Lucifer mentioning a younger brother years and years back.

No one Sam had ever met could pull off that look of agitated consternation quite like Bobby, but the devil made a good go at it. Frustration making unexpected lines between his eyes.

"I mean you _can't_ have heard us. Gabe made sure you and Dean were sleeping."

Shrugging, Sam held out one of the pills, not understanding what the big deal was. "I'm a light sleeper."

"It doesn't work like that," Lucifer snapped so unexpectedly it seemed like he startled himself. Anger softening with a huff of breath and he hunched his shoulders as much as all his wrappings would allow. "You should have been _out_."

"I'm sorry...?" Was he supposed to promise that he'd do better next time? Sam felt rather lost.

The other man was still painfully ignoring the offered little tablet in favor of scowling at the floor. "And you could see my wings too… that's what you'd said."

"Only sort of the shadow of them?" Sam offered the small consolation.

"Could your uncle and brother see them?"

"No." At least Sam was fairly sure seeing as neither of the men had mentioned seeing phantom wings falling all over the furniture when Luci had been dragged into the house.

That agitated expression started to melt as it was overtaken by some strange thought that twisted the devil's mouth into a poor perjury of a smile."If you'll pardon the phrase, I think I've really fucked this up."

And Sam laughed, just this short blurt of sound at such an unexpected confession.

"It's called sympathy. You should try it sometime, Sam."

"What's the issue here? So what, I could see part of your wings before you took them out―and I didn't fall into some kind of Disney princess deep sleep when your brother wanted me to." To Sam these were not bad problems to have. "It's not a big deal. I won't tell anyone about it."

"Ye gods and little fishes." The devil murmured with enough heat it almost seemed like proper profanity. "You've possibly got angelic grace mixed in with your newly installed soul... and you promise not to tell. Yeah, sure. Fine. This couldn't possibly go bad somehow."

One damn thing at a time.

Shaking his head, and then shaking it again to get his hair from his face, Sam once more held out the pill and was being ignored. "Take it."

Sullen, Lucifer almost raised one arm. Even just those few inches up off of his lap sent his right hand shaking like an addict's and he dropped it back to his lap with a frustrated sound.

"I didn't get too close of a look at just what the hell you did to your arms before Dean and Bobby wrapped them up… but do you think that you might have cut some tendons or something?" Because Sam was really, really not in any way capable of patching that sort of damage.

"Human anatomy is nothing that I ever wasted time studying." He said like he was proud of it and not like he was just confessing to a giant oversight that had lead to some permanent damage.

"You're living in a human body, Lu. Maybe consider reading up on how it works." Sam had officially met the only person on the planet that was more frustrating when injured than Dean could be. "Open your mouth."

Lucifer narrowed those nearly colorless eyes of his.

Sam held up the pill like he meant to toss it in, hoping that the devil would figure it out.

"You going to make airplane noises?"

"I'm going to force it down that throat of yours if you don't start cooperating real soon," was Sam's counter offer.

Letting his head fall back, Lucifer opened his mouth, flattened his tongue against his lower lip and closed his eyes.

It was a sign that there was something so very wrong with Sam; because he thought, despite the bruises and bandages, Lucifer looked kind of beautiful when he was like that. All trusting and vulnerable.

Sam did the noble thing and carefully slipped the pill into the other man's mouth before downing one for himself.

Lucifer swallowed and made a face, peeking one eye open. "That tasted awful."

"Yes they do."

"Isn't there supposed to be something about a spoonful of sugar?" Charming even when everything felt wrong.

And then Sam did the less than noble thing and leaned over the empty space between the beds and kissed the devil. His mouth fitting over Lucifer's in a way that almost made sense. The brush of stubble was surprisingly scratchy, though Sam had never tried to kiss anyone else who'd needed to shave. An odd sort of experience that sent a sharp thrill rioting through the hunter when Lucifer's breath hitched.

An agonizing moment passed and he broke the soft press of lips to complain, "if you don't kiss back I just end up looking like as much of an ass as you are."

"Am I allowed to kiss you?"

Startled, Sam sat back onto the second bed. "Are you… are you _allowed_ to?" What kind of a question was that?

"Am I?" It was impossible to tell by his wild and unreadable expression if the other man was just being intentionally difficult or honestly didn't follow.

"For fuck's sake." Sam got to his feet, making the clear decision that there was no way that Lucifer could be half as slow as he was pretending to be. Frustration making his words sharp, "You know what? No. No, you're not."

Lucifer was watching him, his eyes narrowing slowly as he nodded once. "Alright."

" _Alright_?" Sam resisted the very strong urge to kick something or start yelling. "You're not supposed to ask, and you're not supposed to just say 'alright'."

The room got awful quiet as Lucifer simply sat there watching the fuming hunter stand over him. Finally breaking he asked with a tilt of his head, "Is whatever I'm _supposed_ to be doing instead something that you'd like to share with the rest of the class?"

Sam's jaw hurt from how hard he was clenching his teeth.

"What must it be like as a human to have all those terrible and confusing emotions all the damn time? Just running around in your simple little mind. How do you live like that?"

Sam thunked the pill bottle down onto the little nightstand between the beds, "screw you too, you evil dime store knock off, son of a bitch," and left the room.

It was a terrible solution to a problem that he'd made for himself.

Apparently he'd misunderstood whatever he'd overheard between the two angles when he should have been sleeping, and Sam would be the sort of person to make such a devastatingly embarrassing assumption.

" _That hot piece of ass worth all this trouble?"_

" _It's not like that."_

" _Kid must be one hell of a lay if you're willing to throw away a few thousand years of hiding."_

" _It's_ not _like that."_

And Sam had just sort of jumped to the conclusion that at least part of all that Luci had done fit under the umbrella of what his brother had been accusing him of. If not in action, than at least in desire. But desire, _lust_ , was such a very human thing and Sam felt like a jerk for simply assigning it to the divine being that had resurrected him.

He'd apologize later.

Right now was time to lick his wounds, maybe check on Dean, find some more food. Anything at all that kept him out of that room.

A sandwich was made and he took it outside with him because he was afraid of what next stupid thing he might do if he stayed too long under the same roof as the thing upstairs. He found his family working together on a steely blue cadillac from the seventies. Well, the car was up on lifts with Bobby's legs sticking out from underneath while he worked, and Dean was sitting on his ass beside the tool box with a beer in one hand and a torque wrench in the other.

From beneath the car Bobby grunted, "You give up, Sam?"

The youngest hunter leaned heavy on the hood of a nearby Ford and wondered how exactly the old man even knew he was here. "Nah. He's all patched and medicated as best I could do. The rest is just waiting."

"Heard your angel friend punch Dean in the family jewels."

It was so nice to hear Lucifer just referred to as simply his 'friend' for once that Sam almost missed the truly spectacular grimace that Dean pulled. "Yeah, um… he says he's sorry."

"Bull shit," his big brother grunted behind a swig of beer.

And it was.

Lucifer was anything but apologetic for taking a swing at Dean, but Sam still wanted to keep some level of peace―even with the knowledge that it was a wasted effort. "Yeah well, he will say he's sorry."

There was some next level of spite simmering in Dean, well earned spite. "Cuz he just does whatever you tell him to, don't he?"

Sam chose to eat his sandwich instead of answering. After all, he was out here entirely because the devil didn't give a good god damn what Sam wanted him to do.

"How you boys end up with an angel anyhow? Your brother's been closed lip about it." Bobby, usually not a man for many words, seemed more than a little interested. Then again, how often do you have a broken angel dragged into your house?

"He helped us with this germanic bird-creature a couple years ago down in Tennessee."

"Alabama." Dean corrected, and he'd probably know. He had a better memory for places. "An' then the son of a bitch just kept coming back around."

Which wasn't true. Sam had summoned the devil all on his own and sort of started this damning list of IOUs that kept Lucifer coming around. Only, Sam couldn't think of a good way to point that out that didn't involve confessing to Bobby that he was only leasing his body for the time being because he'd agreed to hand it over to Satan as soon as he wasn't using it anymore.

A simple enough trade, to be fair.

But it made Sam feel very uneasy all of a sudden.

He shouldn't be here.

The deal had very literally been _that simple_. Lucifer got his body as soon as Sam died.

And Sam _had_ died.

And here Sam still stood.

Not that he was complaining, but it sure as hell seemed like he'd missed something really important while he'd been out.

"Is he a talkative son of a bitch?" Bobby asked between a series of metallic clanking. "Because a man don't get many opportunities to talk face to face with a monster like him."

"You've got books on angels." Sam knew. He'd read all two of them and found them both to be incredibly uninformative.

"Bunch of old books ain't no substitute for the real thing, Sam." Bobby's hand came out and Dean wordlessly handed over the wrench he'd been holding. "And nowhere in those books did it mention making one of 'em bleed, so I'd say it wouldn't hurt to add a page or two while we've got him around."

Treating Lucifer like a research subject almost definitely wouldn't go over well.

One problem at a time.

One damn problem at a time.

It was Sam's new mantra.

"Dean, can I talk to you?" he nodded out towards the salvage yard, wanting to get in a few words without the quiet judgment of Bobby to contend with.

"Yeah, yeah," his brother clamored to his feet with a rather knowing look, obviously thrilled about whatever conversation they were about to have, but understanding that it was best done without an audience.

It might have been Sam's imagination, but Dean looked to be walking a little more bowlegged than usual as they put a few yards between them and the old man.

"Let me guess, you wanna' talk about your boyfriend."

Off to a great start then.

Sam took a deep breath and just went for it. "Why am I here?"

Dean missed a step. "Don't go gettin' all existential on me, Sammy."

"I mean it. I was dead. Dead for a few days, kind of dead." He'd probably need to come to terms with that at some point, because as of right now it still felt like maybe he hadn't had the proper freak out that the whole event deserved. "So why am I still here when I made a deal that…" was there a way to say it that didn't make the bottom fall out of his stomach?

"Why aren't you Satan's prom dress?"

That wasn't it.

"Because I did that whole calling the devil at the crossroads bit, real classic move, and saved your life." Dean kept on. "You're welcome by the way."

"I've read about those kinds of deals, Dean. They involve trading your soul. Did you trade yourself for me?"

"What? No. Fuck no. Satan's not wearing me, or you. I don't care about your guy's deal."

"He just gave up and said 'never mind, I don't need a body', because that doesn't sound like him."

"Look, it wasn't heavy negotiations. I told him he could have whatever he fucking wanted as long as he brought you back right then. He agreed. And here you are. Don't go making this weird for me, man."

Sam ran his hands through his hair―distressed that apparently his brother had been given the same deal that he'd been dumb enough to offer the devil twice now. It should have been comforting that Lucifer was so predictable.

It was not.

"So you really kissed him then, didn't you?" Instead he found himself asking a really weird question that he was almost positive that he didn't want the answer to.

"Christ, Sam." Dean looked up at the sky like it might help him out of this. "Yes. Alright. I fucking kissed your son of a bitch boyfriend, right on the fucking mouth, because that's what he was willing to trade me to bring my baby brother back for the dead. Alright? I didn't have anything else to trade. You want an apology or something?"

Which was crazy. Of course he didn't want an apology. He was here, wondering why he was even alive, and Dean was treating this whole thing like Sam was having some kind of jealous fit.

It's not like he was demanding to know who kissed who.

Or if it was just the one kiss?

Had it escalated?

Which one of the jerks had been first to suggest a kiss instead of literally anything else that Dean could have traded Lucifer?

Ok, so Sam was slightly interested in knowing what happened, but he knew that there was no way his brother would be offering any kind of clear answer. By the tight line of his mouth and the color high on his cheeks it was obvious that Dean was really not ok with how far this conversation had already gone.

"Thank you… for me not being dead." Sam settled on the one part of this that wasn't going to make him crazy.

Rolling his eyes, Dean pulled him into a one armed hug, speaking with his face pressed into Sam's shoulder, "Yeah well, just don't expect me to go an do it again next time you kick the bucket."

"That's good, because if you do and I catch you I'm going to have to hurt you."

That got a gruff chuckle from Dean before he smacked Sam's back twice and let go with a wink. "I'll let him know we need to keep it on the down low."

Sam punched his brother's shoulder as more of a warning than anything else. Sure they were joking around, but in all seriousness, that acidic feeling churning in his gut let him know that he would very likely surprise them both by his reaction to Dean pawing at Lucifer in any way other than platonic.

It was weird to feel jealous. Especially over something like this. But Sam didn't have a different name for the feeling or the way that he hated the idea that Dean had possibly made out with the only man that he'd ever wanted to touch.

"Look, he's not mine, and he's not interested in me like that―" as much as that hurt to say out loud. "But I still called dibs first."

"Not interested?" Dean threw his head back and laughed, but didn't clarify his response other than two more rough smacks to Sam's back before retreating to the garage to help Bobby. Chuckling the whole damn way.


	19. Chapter 19

Sam stood outside the bedroom a little too long, his hand heavy on the handle, listening to the silence on the other side of the door. The longer he waited the more like a coward he started to feel. Sure, being afraid of The Devil was probably a fairly legitimate and healthy response, but this was years too late to do him any good.

"Luci… you awake?"

"No." Came the easy response.

It was almost as easy to hate the man in that room as it was to feel all those stupid ways about him that Sam did.

He cracked the door open and then sighed when he saw that Lucifer was sitting in the exact same place that he'd left him. Sitting there, on the edge of the bed, looking pitiful.

" _Really_?"

"Oh I do hope that you've come to yell at me and be confusing some more," the devil said wistfully.

"You know, you _can_ lay down."

The man on the bed leveled Sam with a very even and undeservedly patient look.

"You _can't_ lay down."

"Sam, I can hardly breath right now, which is a new and really just… just an awful experience that I could have lived an eternity without experiencing. Needing air is the worst. Pain on this scale is worse than the worst. Unless you feel like giving me five more of those pills and spooning up to me again, kindly go fuck off."

"One wasn't enough, eh?" Sam tried for light and conversational, but really it was a weak attempt to mask how guilty he felt for leaving the other man like this nearly two hours ago. He walked between the beds, setting down the damp towels that he'd carried up here, and smoothing a hand along Lucifer's shoulder as he went. A touch that he hoped was comforting.

"One brought me to this side of wanting to curl up and bite my knees while sobbing." Lucifer didn't shove him off, but it was possible that he couldn't. "If you could just hand me the bottle I'd be appreciative."

"You can't have the whole bottle." He slid his hand up Lucifer's neck, holding him for a moment. Looking down at him and wondering stupidly why he'd ever stormed out of the room in the first place.

"How many would you be taking if one of your arms had nearly been ripped off?"

Sam let go, because right now was not the right time to be petting the devil, and picked up the pain pills where he'd accidently set them far too far away to do Lucifer any good. "Not a whole bottle. It could damage your liver."

"Oh no. Not my liver." He hummed without any emotion. "No one really knows what a liver does anyways, Sam."

"Yes… we do." Sam popped the bottle open and shook out three of the little white pills. "They clean toxins from your body."

"Don't plan on wearing this body all that much longer any how."

Those damn pills felt heavy in Sam's hand as he stood there mutely watching Lucifer watch him.

"Why didn't you take me?"

The devil blinked owlishly slow.

"That was our deal." Sam tried to clarify. "You were supposed to take my body when I died."

"And you're complaining." That long steady look remained.

"God damn it. No, Luci. I'm not complaining. I just… when you're less broken are you going to… are you plannin' to take me?"

A small, sharp sound came out of the man sitting there. "You can't tell, but that was a sigh. I just can't get enough air to make it come out right. Take my word on it though."

"That's not a yes or a no."

"No, Sam. I'm… I'm not going to take you." He looked away for a heart beat before tilting his head back to gaze upward. "I will take those pills though."

"Right. Sorry." Sam held his hand out and felt like a bit of an ass when he remembered that, due to the damage that the other man had inflicted on himself, he'd be waiting for a very long time. "Sorry."

"I'd rather have pills than an apology, Sam."

Awkwardly, the young hunter fed those pills to the devil, one by one. For some reason his hands shaking a little worse each time his fingers brushed against Lucifer's lower lip.

It was the most intimate thing that he'd ever done. And that was taking into account that he'd lived with his girlfriend Jess for a year and the two of them had had sex on a fairly regular basis for a few months longer than that.

"Now I don't want to push my luck," Luci's eyes were like twin crescent moons. Pale and distant. "But shouldn't I be getting one kiss for each of those pills?"

"Oh, shut up." Sam wasn't in the mood to be teased about his screw up earlier.

"Three kisses… just to help the pills go down."

"I'm not kissing you anymore, you jerk." Sam picked up the damp towels and methodically started to wipe clean the smudges and grit and sweat on Lucifer's face and neck. Muttering under his breath as he worked, "it's a waste of fucking effort."

Lucifer let out another one of those sharp, aborted little sighs and let his eyes close as Sam cleaned him up a little less than gently. "Do you ever feel like maybe you and I are on different pages of this book?"

Grunting softly, Sam began to scrub over the other man's bare shoulders.

"Were you going to ask me why I'm not going to take you?"

Sam's movements slowed. "Because my brother kissed you in trade for bringing me back? Maybe in your mind that nulls this death and you'll just wait for the next one. I don't pretend to understand how you tick."

Eyes still closed, the devil got this slow, ghost of a smile as he repeated his question, "were you going to ask me why I'm not going to take you?"

"No." Sam squared his shoulders. "I don't wanna know why you do what you do. It's only going to make me angry."

"You can tell?"

"Everything you do makes me angry."

That hint of a smile bloomed and the devil grinned up at Sam, eyes still peacefully closed. "Well, at least I can say that I'm living up to my reputation."

Sam wondered how things would have gone differently if all those years ago his father had managed to summon a proper ghost to help them hunt down that bird, or a real angel instead of this mess that sat broken before him with that damnable smile on his face.

"You wanna lay on your side or your stomach?" Seeing as he'd have to be the one to put the devil down to bed, Sam thought it was important that he get it right the first time.

His grey eyes lazily drifted open. "Are you going to lay here with me?"

"No." Sam didn't even give himself time to think it over before answering.

"Then on my stomach."

A request easier said than executed. It wasn't that Lucifer wasn't compliant. He moved wherever Sam put him without a struggle or a sideways comment. But he winced. He winced no matter where he was touched; a soft hiss of breath between his teeth or a choked kind of whimper that neither of them mentioned.

"Sorry," Sam couldn't think of any other word to offer. It didn't matter that he wanted to be angry at this man―because angry and wanting to cause him pain were not the same thing.

"Don't get me wrong." Lucifer pered up from where his face was mostly hidden in a pillow. "I love hearing people asking for my forgiveness, but if you keep sayin' it like that a bit of the magic will start to wear off."

" _Sorry_. I'll try and apologize a little less." Making a point not to smile, Sam gathered up the dirty towels and tossed them into the hamper out in the hallway, leaning back into the room. "You… you want me to stay until the pills kick in?"

Lucifer started to say something but bit back the words with an audible _click_ of teeth.

And Sam recognized that look. "I wouldn't offer if I wasn't willing to stay."

The man remained mute, a small frown wearing deep grooves on the corners of his mouth.

"You know what? I'm just going to take your frigid silence as a 'yes'." Sam came back into the room and let himself sink to the bit of floor between the beds. It was lucky that there wasn't enough room on the bed with the devil sprawled out like he was. It made Sam's choice of seats an easy one. "Hopefully the pain killers will take the edge off for you."

A soft grunt came from the lump on the bed.

"I… I don't want to say that you're being a baby about it, because it looks like it must hurt like hell. I've never broken anything so bad that bone was sticking out and―" Sam had to stop himself and take a short breath through his nose. He'd never been hurt that badly, but he remembered Dean falling wrong when they were kids. A compound fracture in his wrist that had broken skin with a truly terrible noise, and his fearless brother who was the bravest and strongest person in little Sam's eyes, had cried like he was dying. "But I've read about wars in Heaven, and you're insanely old. You have to have been hurt before."

"Usually I can heal myself or abandon the body if the damage is too much." Came the muffled answer.

"This time you can't?"

"I'm not as strong as I should be," which was a very round about way of calling himself weak while still keeping some pride. "If anyone caught me outside of this fleshy protective shell I wouldn't be able to defend myself all that well."

Sam had his doubts that Lucifer could defend himself any better in this stolen body any better than he could out of it, but he wasn't going to voice that opinion.

"You know, this is the second time that's he's broken my wings. I think he's developing a fetish for it."

"Yeah?" Sam couldn't trust the conversation that he'd overheard. He didn't have enough context to understand the gravity of what had been said, so he didn't ask who just as he tried not to make too many guesses.

"I 'fell' from Heaven a long time ago," the way he said the word 'fell' implied all sorts of air quotes that he wasn't capable of giving right then. "Spit in God's eye and told them all where they could shove their mercy and love of you filthy apes, _His_ newest mistake, and one of my brothers tried to stop me from leaving."

Sam hadn't been expecting a story.

"He broke both wings that time, so I guess this hurts half as bad… or at least it should. It feels worse somehow."

"Maybe because you're in a human body instead of a full angel?"

A flicker of a smile moved over Lucifer. "I won't complain if you give me one more reason to hate all humans."

"You don't hate _all_ humans."

"I do too… present company excluded." He added on with a little resentment.

Sam reached over and pushed some of the damp hair off the devil's forehead. He'd managed to scrub most of the dried blood and dirt from it with the towels, but the rest would need a proper shower. He slowly carded his fingers through the blonde mess.

"You're petting me."

A little too fast, he pulled his hand back.

"It was a statement, not a request to stop." Lucifer's voice had gone soft, and Sam wished that the devil's face wasn't mostly hidden in pillow and mattress so that some definitive emotion could be put with his words.

Reluctantly, he reached back out, smoothing his fingers along the other man's scalp like he'd pet an overly large and resentful house cat. Careful and slow, as if he expected to get bit or swatted away any moment.

Too soon for it to be caused by the painkillers, Lucifer started to relax, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders and his one visible eye going half mast. "Do you think that you'll ever start making sense?"

Sam managed a questioning noise in response but wasn't really sure what he was being asked, so he didn't know how to respond.

"Humans have always been confusing, so damn confusing. But you? It's like trying to learn a new language."

"I'm not special," to which Sam meant (and hoped) that he wasn't really any more complicated than the next guy.

"Take pride in how awful you are, Sam." Lucifer encouraged with something too close to happiness in his voice. "Not the kind of pride that the Bible says turns you bad. The kind that a parent has for their child. The kind that a friend has for a friend when they do something… something wonderful."

A smile tugged at Sam and he crooked his free arm on the mattress and rested his face in the bend where he could mostly hide. "I should be proud of my awful wonderfulness?"

"Your wonderful awfulness." The devil corrected. "I've done strange and reckless things since I met you, Sam. I've been a creature of habit for thousands and thousands of years, and now here I am, smelling you on this pillow and wondering what color to call your eyes."

Sam's hand stilled, his chest feeling tight for some reason.

"Something in me is broken and I don't mind as much as I should."

And of course right then is when Dean came into the room, knocking sharply as he pushed the door open.

Feeling guilty for some weird reason, Sam peeked over his shoulder and smiled tightly. "Hey."

Dean missed a beat, looking at the two of them, looking at the way his baby brother's fingers were still tangled in the devil's short hair. He didn't say anything about it, just gave them both this long suffering sort of look before speaking. "Just finished up working on that Caddy. Bobby's closing shop and me an' him are gunna head down to Kansas, see about getting that god-killing gun."

"The Colt won't kill a God." The devil muttered.

"Not even the little 'g' kind?" Dean looked almost disappointed.

Lucifer made a face, peering out from around Sam's outstretched arm. "Might. Might not. Don't go wasting bullets trying to find out."

Shaking his head, Sam started to collect himself. "Let me pack a few things and we can―"

"Just me and the old man, Sammy."

"But I―"

"It literally killed you last time. No. You stay here with your boyfriend. We'll be back in a few days."

Sam tried to argue. He had a million reasons why he shouldn't be left here, why Dean shouldn't go back to that house where the walls creaked and moaned like a sleeping beast.

"Bobby thinks he knows what the thing that got you was. He knows how to kill it."

Some high level of scepticism must have shown on Sam's face.

"We burn the fucking house down." Dean showed too much teeth when he grinned. "Hard to haunt a place when it's in ashes. Besides, I told Bobby about why we were there in the first place and he's going down there with or without me. The old man knows all about Samuel Colt's gun, showed me old journals that mention it like it's fucking Excalibur or something, Sammy. He's like a kid at Christmas."

And that was a strange mental image but Sam found himself nodding. "So what, I'm supposed to hang out here and hope you don't die?"

"Yup. That's the plan. Besides, you two are too busted up to be any help." Dean looked at the mess on the bed and the mess on the floor beside it that summed up the two men he'd be leaving behind. "I'm leaving the Impala for you, in case you need to go into town or something. There's fifty bucks on the table for whatever."

Sam felt like he should say 'thank you' but he'd never been all that good at being left behind. "Call me when you get there. Call me when it's dead." He demanded in place of gratitude.

"Yeah, yeah." Dean grabbed up a few of his things that had been littered over his side of the room since they'd come here. "Satan, if when I get back and my brother isn't in the same shape as when I left, if not magically better? I will test out that Colt on your head. You get me?"

"Are you trying to scare me?"

"A bullet. Right between your eyes."

"It won't kill me."

"How sure about that are you right now?" Dean knew how to threaten with a smile, like he honestly was looking forward to trying to prove the devil wrong about that gun and its limitations. And even if it wouldn't kill Lucifer, with the current state he was in? A magic bullet in the head wouldn't be helping his situation any.

"I'll keep him safe."

Sam felt offended that this conversation was going on over his head. Almost as insulted as he was that the man on the bed who could hardly even move was apparently taking it on himself to be protective.

"I hate you both so much sometimes." Sam muttered to himself, not caring if the other two could hear him or not.

"Sammy, I'm leaving you alone with the _thing_ you've been in love with since you were sixteen. Just say thank you." And that's how Dean said goodbye as he left the room.

Dean was an ass.

Sam sat there on the floor, pointedly not looking at the man laying nearby, for quite some time. What he wanted to do was sink down through the floor and vanish, or just sort of stop existing all together, but Lucifer wasn't saying anything. And if the devil wasn't going to mention the horrible truth that had been so casually thrown out there, then Sam would do his best to do the same.

Clearing his throat he leaned back over the bed and resumed his quiet petting, sliding his fingers through now mostly dry hair, and along Lucifer's neck.

"I feel… strange." The devil finally spoke after far too much time had passed them by so very awkwardly.

"Good strange or bad strange?"

He scrunched up one eye, thinking it over before answering. "Not hurting kind of strange."

"Great."

"It's kind of numb."

"Yeah, painkillers do that."

"If you say so," he huffed, simply trusting the human's experience with this sort of thing.

Sam was grateful to hear that dull and slow sort of timber to the other man's voice. "I'm… I'll let you try and get some sleep."

"Stay here with me." Came the soft request, almost a question but not quite.

Sam hadn't even gotten his legs fully under himself so he really didn't have that far to go to settle back down. "Yeah, yeah. Just until you pass out."

"No. Forever."

Which, regardless of if it was a joke or not, got Sam laughing. " _Just_ until you pass out. I'm not a creep, I can't hang out and stare at people like you like to do."

"I can teach you to be a creep."

"Yeah?"

"Stick with me, kid." And it was obvious that the pills had hit the devil a little harder than either of them had quite anticipated. But that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. "I'll teach you all kinds of terrible things."

"I believe that." Sam realized he was smiling a little too much about the same time that he realised that he didn't care about that as much as he should. If he'd learned anything about this man over the years it was not to encourage him. Oh well.

He stayed there petting Lucifer until his breaths evened out and he didn't stir when Sam stopped his careful petting. The hunter probably could have stayed there, being a creep, but it was a little more than he was willing to give into right then. As quiet as possible he climbed to his feet and tiptoed out of the room, leaving the door open in case… just in case. He didn't understand his own actions and he didn't want to think about them too hard. It was so much simpler to ease himself down to Bobby's study and see if he could find the book on the Colt that Dean had mentioned.


	20. Chapter 20

One of the more difficult decisions that Sam had had to make in a very long time was where to sleep that night. Six hours after the first pills that he'd shoved into Satan, the man had woken up in a state and Sam's only option was to give him more pills to mitigate the fractured sentences and hollow gaze. The devil was sleeping again which meant that no one was there to judge Sam's small crisis.

He could squeeze into the bed that he'd spent last night in… or more reasonably he could use Dean's.

What a choice.

A choice that shouldn't be a choice at all.

And still, for some reason, he stood there between the two beds wondering if he'd be able to wedge himself in beside Lucifer without waking him up. Which was a terrible plan. An absolutely awful plan. But really, it's not like they could both easily fit on the bed beneath the window. And it would be stupid to try when there was this whole other bed no one else would be using.

He tossed back a single pill from the dwindling stock and stretched out in Dean's old bed, letting his aching bones sink into the lumpy mattress. There was as much comfort in the logic behind the decision as there was regret.

Sometimes Sam hated having to be a rational person.

Especially when being rational meant sleeping by himself.

Reaching out between the beds he switched the table lamp off, and for a few seconds he felt blind; his eyes taking their time to slowly adjust to the scattered starlight coming in through the open windows. Lucifer was little more than a slightly shifting mountain on the far side of the room, his sharp breaths almost inaudible under the nighttime sounds of crickets out in the salvage yard and wind rusting the old oak trees.

"Hey?" Sam whispered, and when no answer came he tried again a little louder. "Hey, Luce?"

He might have imagined it, but he thought he heard a soft, questioning grunt.

" _Lu-ci-fer_?"

That time there was almost definitely murmur of an answer somewhere under the cloud of vicodin.

"I think I forgot to tell you," Sam had heavy doubts if any of his words were actually being heard and understood, which was ideal because as tired and battered as he still was he knew that whatever he was about to say would be unnecessary and stupid. "Thanks for bringing me back."

" _Mm-hm_."

A warm feeling rioted up inside of Sam's chest. "I don't know what Dean would have done if you hadn't agreed to do it. He's… he probably would have sold his soul or worse to get me back. Maybe he would have found an actually scary monster to make a deal with."

Unexpectedly, real words came from the other side of the room, though they were drugged and slow. " 'm plenty scary."

"No you're not." And it surprised Sam at how much affection he heard in his own voice. By all accounts the man laying over there in the dark should be absolutely terrifying―only he wasn't. And he never had been as far as Sam was concerned. "You're kind of… kind of _Satan-lite_. Same great temptation, but now with only half the calories, half the evil."

Proving Sam's point spectacularly, Lucifer giggled. For dignity sake it should have been considered a manly chuckle, but the devil was high as a kite, doped up on painkillers, and he was giggling.

A second voice joined in the laughter, it wasn't Sam's, and the hunter gagged on the sudden dread that smothered all those happy feelings. He pulled the loaded gun out from beneath his pillow, flicking off the safety and leveling it at the corner of the room still bathed in deep nighttime shadows. He couldn't see anyone, but it was unsettlingly dark on that side of the bedroom. All Sam had to go off of for location was the masculine laughter that suddenly cut short, only to come back twice as loud.

"Is your little pet human really pointing a gun at me?" The voice asked, only too happy about the situation.

Lucifer answered, which was great because Sam was fairly positive the question hadn't been aimed at him. "Took you long enough to get back, Gabriel."

"Yeah well, I stopped to do a little sightseeing while I was down there. You know how lovely Hell is this time of year."

There was the soft _snap_ of fingers and the bedside lamp came to life with a hungry yellow glow that burned at Sam's eyes, forcing him to take longer than he would have liked to focus in on the unexpected company.

Gabriel (who Sam could only assume was Lucifer's brother from the night before, which made him quite possibly the archangel Gabriel) was not exactly what Sam had expected. Though, Lucifer didn't really live up to any 'Satan' expectations, so maybe disappointment was just a family trait.

The other man (or man shaped angelic creature) was… well, he was short. He had hair longer than Sam's and a sleepless, haunted sort of look in his warm eyes that didn't quite match the broad smile that he wore. He also looked like he was smoking, right up until he pulled the 'cigarette' out from between his lips to reveal that it was the stick of a very blue lollipop.

Sam sat up and lowered his gun, realizing that even if he did need it it probably wouldn't be doing him any good against an angel.

"Hi?" He really wasn't sure what else to say.

Gabriel winked as he said, "Hi, handsome." His tongue was stained as blue as the candy he was eating.

"Don't," Lucifer grumbled from the bed, with probably not even half of the force that he intended behind the single word.

"You know, I'm not sure why you're both shirtless," the other angel mused with a crooked smile, seemingly enjoying this far more than the other two, "but I'm feeling a little overdressed here."

The devil was bandaged up to the point that he may as well have been wearing a shirt, and Sam, well, he'd been going to sleep. It was warm out. He had every right to wear only sweats to bed. Except now he felt very self conscious about his sleepwear.

"I'm not complaining," Gabriel continued. "I'm just asking if I should, you know," he plucked at the edges of his shirt with a grin. "Just to fit in."

"Can you stop being you for five minutes. Please?" Lucifer, who still really couldn't move around without help, was doing his best to glare down towards the foot of the bed where his brother stood.

Gabriel was really good at smiling around his lollipop, his words surprisingly clear despite the candy in his mouth. "Luci, when is the next time I'm going to get to see you mumied up like Boris Karloff? Let me enjoy this."

"Sam," the injured man turned his glassy gaze towards the hunter, "Sam, go hit him for me."

"No!"

"Just smack that smug little smile off his little weasel face. I promise that if you don't want to right now, you will in the next few minutes so you may as well get it out of the way."

Sam held his hands up in surrender, wordlessly saying that he would have nothing to do with whatever this was. It should have been something like a relief to know that angelic-brothers were no different than human brothers. Really, it was just weird.

"Now, Luci's always been pretty close lipped about you for _years_ now," Gabriel so easily ignored his prone older brother and came to sit at the end of Sam's bed with such a coy, almost flirtatious smile that set the hunter on edge. "He even went as far as warding you against me finding you, just so I couldn't see who he was sneaking off with."

"Gabe―!" Lucifer managed to sound utterly horrified.

"You thought I didn't know? I'm not stupid. My big bro's off making pretty eyes at a human, I'm going to take notice, and the fact that you tried to hide him from me made it even more interesting." The small archangel seemed to only know how to smile and he did it so well as he turned back to Sam. "So tell me, you big hunk of human… what's your name?"

"His name is _Sam_." Lucifer answered with a strange weight on the last part which probably had a little to do with the drugs still in his system but more to do with the fact that he looked like he was attempting to sit up.

" _Shit_ ," the hunter rolled off the bed with little thought, going to the devil and laying hands on the curve of muscle between neck and shoulders. "Stop it. You're going to hurt yourself, you stubborn ass. Let me help." He didn't wait for any confirmation, just rolled the very surly looking angel in the opposite way that he'd helped him lay down hours ago. With only a little effort (god bless meds taking the edge off the same sorts of movements that had caused so much pain earlier in the day), Lucifer was able to lean most of his weight into Sam's arms and let the hunter do the heavy lifting. It took two overly drawn out minutes, but he got the devil settled into a slightly more dignified and upright position.

It was all a natural movement for Sam, something that he would have done for Dean, or even a stranger. You don't just sit there and watch an injured person struggle to move when you can help them. Only, Sam hadn't stopped to consider how the familiarity in his touch or his words would look to Lucifer's brother. It was only when he sat back on his own bed and caught sight of Gabriel that Sam realized that he might have just done something odd.

The spectrum of an average person's smiles was typically limited, only able to convey a handful of emotions and nuances. Gabriel was obviously not even close to an average person. The lopsided smile on his face wasn't a single feeling, it was sentences, paragraphs, it was pages and pages of feelings and thoughts conveyed in the carefully subtle curl of his mouth and the slightly surprised arch of just one eyebrow, the curious tilt of his head, and the way that he'd at some point leaned towards the other two like he wanted a closer look.

Lucifer seemed to notice it too, and so easily just said, "Shut up, Gabriel," despite the fact that his brother had said nothing at all with words.

"Well, _Sam._ You got a last name to go with that, or should I just wait until you two get married and see what Luci changes his last name to?"

Sam could tell he was being teased, right along with Lucifer (who looked somewhat murderous under that pacifying cloud of opiates). But Sam couldn't care about it because a strange thought had been presented to him. "Do angels _have_ last names?"

"Sure don't, Sammich. We're like Cher, or Madonna, or Brad-Pitt. No last names. But you? What name did your daddy give you? I'm dying to know."

"He doesn't have a last name." Lucifer butted in like a warning. "Now did you find my Grace or not?"

"Find it? It was exactly where you left it when I sprung your lock on that time-out box they shoved your rebellious ass into. It wasn't exactly hard to find."

"So you got it?"

Gabriel gestured grandly to himself with a lofty expression. "Does this look like the stunning physique and demeanor of a failure? No it is not. I got your Grace and you owe me big time for it, brother. Big, BIG time."

Lucifer's fingers clenched, almost like he was reaching, and maybe he was except he simply didn't have the strength to do more than flex his hands―the joys of possible self inflicted tendon damage. "Fine. We can go over logistics of whatever insane thing that you want from me later. Hand it over."

"So impatient. Not even a ' _thanks'_ , or a ' _wow, Gabe, you're really the best at everything ever, I'm lucky to have such a smart, and clever, and attractive, brother like you_ '." Gabriel managed to look so put upon all while grinning quite gleefully. He turned to look at Sam. "Is he like this with you too? Ungrateful? Rough?"

Sam frowned.

"Oooh, tell me he's rough."

Sam frowned a little harder and wished that he'd chosen to sit down beside Lucifer, because despite the devil being down right enigmatic at times, and least he was a familiar brand of strange.

"Gabriel, stop it, or I'll hurt you once I'm feeling better." Lucifer sounded oddly protective of Sam, in the same exact way that Dean usually got overly protective and it was _almost_ comforting to hear that tone.

"You're even less fun than normal when you're hurt." Gabriel complained before making a sharp _crack_ as he bit the remains of his lollipop in pieces. "Alright, alright. Sammykins, why don't you step your lovely human self out and close the door. You don't need to be here to see this part."

Hesitantly, Sam half stood, looking questioningly at Lucifer because leaving the two of them alone felt really like a bad idea.

"Honey, his vessel is too far gone." Gabriel explained with the first hint of gentleness to his words. "His Grace is going to burn it up and if you're here it'll burn those pretty eyes of yours right out of your head. So go on, us adults have things to do."

"I'll have to leave." Lucifer said almost like an apology, a little frown pinching his mouth. "To go find a new body. But if you need me… later… for something… you know how to call me." It was hard to tell if his studden awkwardness was from the drugs, making the offer, or his little brother so happily ginning as he listened to it all.

Sam could have just walked out and simply taken the offer for what it was (for whatever it was meant to be, because he didn't have a good idea and would need a while to unpack all that wasn't being said). So, out of affection, or spite, Sam asked for clarification. "What if I don't _need_ anything and I just miss you for some stupid reason?"

From the corner of his eye, Sam could see Gabriel's smile go tight and his eyes go round as saucers. He looked more invested in Lucifer's possible response than Sam was, which was a ridiculous thing to think, but the impression was there all the same.

The devil seemed honestly baffled by Sam's question, blinking his near black eyes with his drug dilated pupils so impossibly wide. "You think missing me would be a stupid reason?"

Running his hands through his hair, Sam realised that he was wasting his breath. Lucifer wasn't getting much of anything through that haze of drugs. "You know I think everything involving you is a stupid reason… good luck with that Grace-thing, Luci. I hope you feel better and, uh, I'll let you know when Dean gets back with the Colt."

It was awkward and all kinds of a terrible goodbye, but it's what Sam had and he pointedly did not look at either of the angels as he left the room and firmly closed the door behind him.

" _You want me to explain_ that _to you?_ " Gabriel's incredulous demands could be heard very clearly through the door. " _Oh, buddy, if you don't get it I don't think there's a soul alive that can explain it to you_."

Sam stayed in the hall, sleepily leaning on the wall beside an old deer hunting photo of Bobby, John, and another man named Rufus. He probably could have gone down stairs and tried to get some sleep on the couch. There was no telling how long reinstalling a Grace would take. But that would have meant that he couldn't listen to the brothers, and he really, _really_ wanted to hear their 'private' conversations.

" _I make him angry_." Lucifer lamented.

" _And what does he make you_?"

" _Stupid_."

" _Oh yeah, he does._ " Gabriel was laughing like it was the best joke he'd ever heard. " _Now come here, you big lug. I can't fix stupid, but I can put you back together._ "

" _Just give me back my damn Grace. I'm too tired to insult you properly._ "

There was a burst of light from around the door, a million watt bulb burning painfully bright for a few seconds before there was only the pale yellowed glow from the single bedside lamp. Apparently it was a fast process, which was good if only because it meant that Sam could sleep in his own bed. There weren't sounds of life coming from inside, so he popped the door open and admired all those empty beds.

He already missed Lucifer, which was stupid, but stupid had worked well for them so far.

Sam sunk down into his own bed and may or may not have buried his face into the pillow that was still warm.

"Oh no. You're adorable." Gabriel said from the foot of Sam's bed where he most definitely hadn't been seconds before.

It was like nails on a chalkboard to Sam, the sound of the other man digging into the base of his spine and setting him on high alert. He'd never sat up so fast in his life. "Why are you still here?"

"I dumped the corpse… you look like you've had a bad time recently, thought you might not be up for disposing of a body." Somehow, somewhere, he'd acquired for himself a chocolate dipped vanilla ice cream cone. He took a moment to lick a little melted trail of white before it could reach his fingers. "And my big bro is going to be out for a while looking for a suitable vessel. What better time to come marvel at the glory that is _you_?"

Sam did not say 'thank you', because that sure as hell wasn't any proper kind of compliment.

"First off, you got my brother high on prescription pills? Mad props for that one. Second? You wrapped him up like a sweet little bat burrito. It's now the background on my phone and I love it."

"Do I want to know what a bat burrito is?"

"Little baby bats. Vets wrap them up in blankets and feed them grapes. It's on Youtube, you uncultured swine." He took a messy bite of ice cream and then sort of hesitated, holding it out towards Sam. "You want some?"

"No thanks?"

"Come on. I don't have cooties."

"You're really nothing like your brother."

Gabriel beamed. "I will take that as a compliment." He resumed eating his own treat in peace. "So, this is a hunter's house. Not an important one, because if he was I'd know who, but still. That's something… he's your dad?"

"No." Sam felt very uncomfortable about the accusation. "Why?"

"Because you give me a full name and I don't need to worry about all that warding my brother slapped on you. I can just go look you up, and I gotta admit, I'm real curious what sort of human my brother would almost kill himself for. Going home for Lucifer only ever had one outcome, but he still went."

"I didn't ask him to."

"No?"

"I was dead. I couldn't have asked him if I wanted to."

Gabriel almost dropped his ice cream, eyes so wide and honey colored. "You... _Christ on a crutch_ , you were dead for some reason he didn't take you as his new vessel like you promised him he could. Oh, have I got questions for him."

And Sam didn't think he could get more uncomfortable.

" _Yes_ , I can read your thoughts." Gabriel easily clarified exactly what Sam was thinking. "Get over it, snowflake."

"Get out of my head."

"It's a minefield in there, sweetcakes. Trust me. I don't want to go taking any walks through that hot mess if I don't have to, but you were the one yelling every thought. Keep it down and I'll mind my own damn business."

How do you think quietly?

Somewhat sadly, Sam had to reevaluate that Lucifer wasn't actually all that strange or confusing. Not by comparison. Not when Gabriel was here setting a new and very high bar.

"Is your whole family like this? I mean, if I end up meeting more angels can I expect this level of douchey superiority, or will they be less…?"

Gabriel threw back his head and let out a sharp laugh before producing a secondary ice cream cone and just placing it in Sam's hands. "You earned it, Samsquash."

"I… already brushed my teeth."

"Live a little."

Reluctant as he could be, Sam took a nibble of the ice cream before it could start melting down his hand and dripping onto the bed.

"And yeah. We're all a bunch of feathery douche canoes one way or another. Got to say that you hooked up with one of the nicest ones of us, though. I mean, if you can overlook Luci's hellish crusade of revenge, and that time that he killed more of our siblings in one fell swoop that have otherwise ever died during the whole time we've existed. That was all before he got locked up through. Before he left his Grace behind… so you probably shouldn't worry or anything. I'm sure he's reformed and wont go right back to being a murderous, furious, reaping archangel of destruction now that he's got his Grace back."

Sam was almost positive that the things that Gabriel was saying weren't entirely true. He let the ice cream cone start to melt as he ignored it in favor of frowning at the man who was weirder, but no closer to 'scary' than Lucifer. "What exactly are you trying to do by telling me this?"

"I'm seeing if I can scare you off."

"Off your brother?"

For the first time, Gabriel lost a bit of his smile. "No. Off me. I can see it in your eyes, you've got it bad―" he teased so flatly before rolling his eyes and clarifying. " _Yes,_ off my brother. You're a human. You're almost definitely a hunter. You almost got him killed. I know, I know. Not on purpose. But still. If you two are going to be idiots over each other, I want to know if you're going to get spooked off and leave him the first time it gets too weird and he gets too murder-y. Because you should have seen him after Mikey broke his heart. I can't go through the teenage heartbreak pity party again."

"I'm not dating your brother."

"Wow. Yeah. Didn't say that, Freud." Gabriel winked. "But I'll be sure to tell Luci that you did." The angel laughed at his own little joke, but the sound died quickly as he cocked his head to one side like he was listening.

Sam heard nothing at all.

"Aaaand, he knows I'm here with you and he's pissed about it. I forgot how possessive he can be with his toys." Gabe chomped down on the rest of his cone, chipmunking most of it into one cheek so he could speak. "Don't think this is goodbye forever. You're too much fun, Sam." One last wink and then the archangel was gone and Sam was almost definitely properly alone in his room.

It had been a strange night, and sleep didn't come easy; but Sam got there eventually, sprawled out on the bedding that smelled like the man he wasn't dating.


	21. Chapter 21

a/n: it's so different between posting stories here and posting them on ao3. I always leave notes over there and I've made some long term friends with people in the fandom, and over here is so very quiet.

The samifer ship doesn't usually sail in these waters (it feels much more destiel centered of a place, oddly?). But I'm happy for you few cool cats over here that have been enjoying this story with me. I'm glad we found each other.

* * *

Two days.

It took two days for Dean and Bobby to get back from that house in Kansas that breathed and shifted like it knew they were there. And as it turned out two days was slightly too much for Sam to be alone with his thoughts. Plenty of time to start feeling human again, but way too long for him to be thinking about all sorts of things that he usually did his best not to think about.

Sam wasn't stupid, even though it really seemed that way sometimes. Book smarts he had more than plenty of and an innate ability to empathise with almost anyone he met, but Dean had always been the one with the charm―the one who could flirt and smile and sweet talk the pants off of anybody who caught his eye. And it's not like Sam wanted the same thing. There wasn't any specific pair of pants that he was hoping to get on the floor, he just wished he had a bit more of the swagger and experience that his big brother seemed to have been born with.

He had to play the cards he'd been dealt. Those socially awkward, cards that couldn't ever tell if someone actually liked him or not because he never knew if he was just hopeful or projecting, or if they were simply being nice. Jess had been very forward. She'd kissed him first and that had cleared things up in his mind right quick.

But for years now he'd been utterly lost trying to piece together all the sideways comments and long looks that the devil was always casting at his feet. Dean seemed to know what it all meant though (or at least like to think that he did as he liked to always think that he knew what was going on), and now Gabriel _knew_ too.

So very clearly Sam could hear those words that the angel had spoke with such amused outrage: ' _You want me to explain that to you?_ ' like he understood every part of what Sam and Lucifer were always fumbling so awkwardly over.

And Sam couldn't help but spend those two days thinking, and overthinking all those strange offers and questions and hesitant touches.

Everything would be simpler if he'd just been able to simply _stop_ having the same stupid crush on Lucifer that he'd had since he was a kid.

Then he wouldn't be eternally hoping that little things meant big things even though he knew that in actuality he was only dealing with an ageless monster who simply didn't understand humans.

God, but he was grateful when Dean came swaggering into the house, still stinking of smoke. He'd texted back when they'd torched the house and found the gun, but his goofy grin said that he was still riding high on the success of the hunt.

"Sammy, my boy," he held his ash dusted arms out like he wanted a hug. "Look at you, up and walking around."

There was a stiffness that lingered in Sam's joints, and a stumbling soreness like his bones had been bruised, but it hadn't been enough to keep him from coming to the door when he'd heard the familiar rumble of Bobby truck coming up the drive.

Reluctantly, he let Dean pull him in for a short but thorough hug, the kind that left him almost breathless. He pounded on his big brother's back and gave him as much of a smile as he could force. "Glad to have you guys back. I was going crazy here by myself."

"By yourself?" Bobby grunted as he came in the door that Dean had left open. The old man nodded up to the ceiling and the bedrooms above them. "What happened to tall, unconscious and feathery?"

"His uh, brother came and fixed him up."

"Son, you inviting friends over while I'm gone?" It was almost like teasing, which mean that Bobby too was in a fantastic mood. Nothing like burning down a haunted house to put a man in good spirits. "What have I told you about throwing angel parties while I'm out?"

The idea of Lucifer doing anything that could pass as 'partying' was enough to make Sam laugh. He released his brother and surveyed the two hunters. "You guys look awful."

"Yeah well, killing a teraphim isn't easy work for an old man." Bobby took off his baseball cap as he moved into the kitchen, setting it on the table before going to the fridge and taking out a beer for himself.

"For an old man?" Dean shook his head, smiling at Sam. "Yeah, the _old man_ distracted the damn thing while I gotta go get whatever journals I could before we burnt the damn son of a bitch to the foundations."

Through texts from his brother, Sam had found out what the other two had gone back to Kansas to kill. An old world household god that had apparently been grossly mistreated and gotten very angry about it. It was probably a once in a lifetime kind of monster hunt, and to be honest Sam was sort of happy to have sat this one out, seeing as it had already killed him once.

"So books for you, Sammy." Dean smacked his shoulders almost gently, obviously still worried about how injured his baby brother had been as of late. "And a shiny new gun for me."

"You've got another thing coming if you think I'm going to let you boys walk out of here with that gun." Bobby said without much threat. The man was more of less retired from any hunting that wasn't within a few hours of his home. He prefered to stay in and safely do the kind of research that could be passed on to help kept young and overly eager hunters like Sam and Dean alive. "Not until I get a good look at it, see how it measures up to all the notes."

It wasn't every day that you came across a legendary weapon. Sam couldn't blame Bobby for wanting to get a good and thorough look at it.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm not gonna fight you for it, Bobby." Dean looked amused, obviously thinking the same thoughts that Sam was. They weren't in a hurry here. "I could though." Dean confided softly to his brother. "Old man's getting rusty."

"I'm old, not deaf, boys." He set two more beer bottles on the table as an unspoken invitation. "Do I still have those steaks in the freezer?"

Sam nodded and scuffed his feet on his way to go sit down.

With a soft grunt, Bobby set to making some dinner for the three of them and only after the steaks were all sizzling in the pan on the old gas range top did he start talking again. "So, how many angels have you boys met now?"

"Just the two," Sam rolled his nearly empty beer bottle between his hands as he launched into a brief and slightly edited version of meeting Lucifer's younger brother.

"You think it's any kind of food he can make whenever, or just ice cream?" Dean, naturally, focused on the important parts.

"Angels vary from religion to religion and there's not much consistency in the lore in any direction you read up," Bobby set a pot of water on to boil, because apparently they were having pasta with their slabs of meat. "But most records seem to agree that they're supposed to be able to alter space and time, some of the most powerful creatures to ever walk the face of the Earth, and you're trying to figure out if if this new one can get you pie?"

Dean shrugged, grinning without an ounce of shame. "What can I say? I'm a simple man."

It wasn't fair that all Sam could think was how much he wished that everyone was as easy to read as his big brother.

 **.:.**

"Lucifer," a proper prayer felt blasphemous, but talking to the evening sky felt idiotic. Still, Sam tried. He was out on the back porch with some half hearted excusing of wanting to get some air. Bobby had gone to shower and probably knock off to sleep early, and Dean had simply gone to bed despite stinking of cinders and a long few days on the road. "I've never called for you… formally. So I don't know if I'm doing this right. But, yeah. Can you hear me?"

The night didn't answer him.

He hadn't really expected it to?

"Dean brought the colt back. At least he brought _a_ colt revolver back. It matches the descriptions that Bobby had in his books." He felt every inch like he was only talking to himself, but he had no idea how this was supposed to work. "You said I didn't have to write your name anymore, that you'd just come if I called… you ass. I'm calling you. Pick up. Breaker breaker one-niner. Can you hear me, Lucifer?"

It was amazing how easy it was to feel stupid. To feel crazy. Standing there on the porch, talking to no one about a magical gun. It made Sam miss that little window in his life where things were simple, where the only thing he had to worry about were sociology papers and finding the right balance between sleep and studying all night.

"Are you still looking for a body?" He rattled the pen he'd brought out with him against the worn porch railing. "Can you just pop up in my head like you used to?"

Frustrated, he uncapped the pen and carefully drew out on a scrap of paper the strangely curling symbol that had worked three times before to summon up the devil. It still didn't look quite right, and he would have to ask the other man where his line were going wrong, but at the same time, it didn't look any more off than the previous times he'd scrawled it out.

And yet it remained just him out on the porch, breathing in the warm night air as the sky steadily dimmed and the sounds of crickets rallied out in the salvage yard.

"You jerk." He told the piece of paper because it was the only direction that he had for his irritation. "You promised you'd show up."

 **.:.**

The majority of the time that Bobby and Dean had been off hunting, Sam had spent sleeping off the worst of his injuries and doing his best not to think too hard about certain angels who apparently sucked at keeping promises. It meant that he hadn't really had any time to do his regular bookworm routine and scour all news sources for the weird and unexplained. When he came down for breakfast the morning after his unanswered prayers he was a little startled to see Bobby watching the news on the little grainy pictured portable television that usually sat unplugged in the corner of the study as a bookend.

There was no need to ask what was going on.

The coffee pot sat neglected on the burner as Sam slowly came to stand beside Bobby and watch the little static lined screen.

"- nationwide manhunt continues. Bodies were found outside of the Las Vegas strip this morning as this horrific string of murders tragically claims five more victims." A female reporter's voice was played over footage of desert sands and sluggishly swaying police tape as uniformed officers moved around in the background. "Local authorities are urging anyone who may have witnessed anything unusual taking place last night between the hours of nine and midnight near the Toluca Casino to contact the tip line at-"

Bobby nodded to Sam, motioning with his mostly empty mug towards the stove in an offering of breakfast. "You heard about this?"

"No," he didn't move, eyes fixed on the info graphic of phone numbers to call and shotty security footage of a cluster seemingly happy people leaving a casino together and heading out towards the parking lot. "What do they mean ' _more_ victims'? What's going on?"

"Started late last night it seems." The old man shook his head like the whole thing was more disappointing than concerning. "Eight cities so far, bodies turning up with their eyes burnt out."

"That's… that sounds like our kind of thing."

"Dean's already packing the car." He ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair. "There's a plate of pancakes in the oven for you boys. Something for the road. Nearest crime scene is in Billings, Montana."

Which was a bad start to a bad hunt.

Six crime scenes in four days and neither Dean or Sam had a clue what the hell was going on. They'd examined bodies and talked to bereaved families and all that the brothers knew for sure was that out of the twenty two victims over half of them had stunk of sulfur. They'd made it all the way down to Vegas, and Sam was sweating through his suit but keeping an air of importance and calm as he and Dean stood on opposite sides of some fairly artist burns that had been left in the pavement.

This corner of the parking lot out back of the casino was still barred from public use with yellow caution tape (an inconvenience that made the owner rather short and irritable when the Winchesters had come to talk see if they could review any copies of the security footage). And no one really marked where bodies fell in real life, that was all for real crime documentary crap or newspapers because showing an actual dead body on the ground would have been insensitive. They didn't need that easy to follow outline though―the sprawl of chard asphalt in the shape of wings showed exactly where the corpse had lain before the cops came and cleaned things up.

There hadn't been any signs of wings at the other crime scenes. Just the acrid scent of sulfur. It sort of screamed 'dead angel' but it was an unpleasant conclusion. Demons were trouble enough on their own (though dead ones had been kind of a nice turn of luck for once in their lives), but throwing angels in the mix sort of opened things up to something much bigger than either hunter was really ready to deal with.

Dean's suit jacket was unbuttoned, his tie sitting crooked on his chest while the dry air stirred around them, the hair on his temples dark with sweat. "So what, we got us a bunch of dead demons on our hands, which I ain't complaining about by the way… but what the fuck?"

"What are the chances that this _isn't_ because of Heaven and Hell knowing that Lucifer's AWOL?"

"Slim to none?"

Sam took a breath of the thin desert air and his throat felt dry and gritty. He didn't like admitting that the part of this whole thing that bothered him the most was that it meant Lucifer might be in danger. He didn't want to worry about the devil. No one should ever have to worry about the devil and whether or not he was doing ok.

"Aw, Sammy. You worried about your boyfriend?" And it wasn't fair how easily Dean could read him.

"He's not," _my boyfriend!_ "answering when I call. But he's probably just still out looking for a vessel or whatever." And Sam had 'prayed' to Lucifer for three nights in a row before giving up. He liked to hope that the angel had important things going on, and wasn't intentionally avoiding him, or just unable to answer―It was a nicer line of reckoning.

Dean loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. "Is that why you've been pissy the past few days? You really that worried about the son of a bitch? Come on, man. He's the actual Satan. I'm sure he's fine. Out there somewhere doing Satan-things and he's just too busy to answer the phone."

Those words were possibly meant to be comforting, but calming nerves had never been one of Dean's strong suits.

"Shut up." Sam ran a hand over the back of his neck, then wiped the sweat off on a pant leg. "You want to go on to the next crime scene, or you want to head to the coroners and be sure it was demons this time too?"

"What I want is to figure out if this is something that we need to actually worry about, or if we just let the demons and angels duke it out and keep clear." He cast one last look down at the burnt pavement and shook his head. "And a cold beer. I'd kill for a cold beer."

Sam could only shrug, feeling a line of sweat running down his back because whoever thought that Nevada in the summer was a good thing was just _wrong_.

"Heya, you think you can, uh, call up your boyfriend's brother or something?" Dean lit up at his own suggestion. "He could tell us how good ol' Luci is doing, ease that worried mind of yours… and maybe he knows why angels and demons are having slap fights down here."

It wasn't a stupid suggestion, but Sam had a feeling that there was an ulterior motive in his big brother's wise line of reasoning. "You just want to see if he'll give you free ice cream."

"I'm not gonna' turn down some heavenly ice cream if he offers, Sammy. But come on, you have any better ideas for a lead? 'Cause otherwise we're just going state to state looking at corpses and it feels like a fuckin' waste of time."

A push in the right direction wouldn't be a bad thing, Sam just wasn't sure he was ready to ask for this kind of help.

They made it back to their hotel room, shedding their suits like molting birds. Dean was down to boxers and an undershirt, standing before the little window AC unit with his arms splayed wide.

Sam had pulled on jeans but couldn't bear the thought of more clothes until the sweat on his skin had dried. He was spread out on one of the twin beds with a pile of journals within reach. He'd gone through Dad's and he'd gone through the ones collected from the dead hunter's house that they'd pulled the colt from. Two pages written in that cramped script talked about summoning an angel named Artiya'il who was supposed to be able to remove grief, and then the three subsequent pages were about how to ward against angels. It was a strange narrative for a dead hunter and Sam sort of felt sorry about whatever had obviously gone very wrong in their life.

"You figure it out, college boy?" Dean's voice stifled as he spoke directly into the blast of cold air.

"It… it's actually really easy, but it also looks like a really stupid idea." Sitting up, Sam rested the stranger's journal on one leg. There were all kinds of protection that they should probably lay out first, a ring of holy oil among other precautions―but Sam had already met Gabriel and the little guy seemed squirrely but not nearly as dangerous as whatever pissed off angel that this dead hunter had stupidly summoned up. "It's just some words in Enochian."

" _Just_ some words?"

"I'm not so sure on how to pronounce them right, but I'll give it a go?"

Dean looked over his shoulder, oddly surprised that apparently it would be that easy. "Yeah, just let me get some pants on first."

Being dressed wasn't a _bad_ idea, so Sam dug a clean-ish shirt from his bag, pulled it on and did his best to not butcher the words of a language that were probably never meant for human mouths to speak.

"― _ah ma lah deh zod_." He finished the little chant and waited kind of expectantly.

From the other side of the room, Dean raised an eyebrow. "That it?"

"I think so?" Sam frowned and looked back at the very carefully written words before trying the incantation again but with a slightly different weight on some of the short syllables.

Head down in the journal he was more than a little startled when someone other than Dean told him, "yeah, yeah. I heard you the first time."

Sam's chest went tight and he looked up to see Gabriel standing there in the middle of the hotel room. It wasn't a feeling of danger so much as just shock that it had actually worked.

"So, you just call to chat, big boy?" He looked Sam slowly up and down, taking in the bed that he was sitting cross legged on. "Because as flattering as it is, Luci isn't going to like this little crush you've got on me."

 _Why?_

Sam glanced down at the book and wondered if it might be a bit insulting to read out the angel banishing spell on the next page. Even sitting, he could easily looked over the angel's head to give Dean a weighted look. A look that he hoped conveyed his reservations about this whole plan.

But his brother only offered a shrug that looked a bit too much like he was holding back laughter.

"We were hoping for some insight." Sam told the archangel, setting aside the journal and the temptation to nope out of this situation.

"Oooh, _insight_." Gabriel turned to examine the man at his back. "How about you, brother of my brother's pet human. You hoping for insight, good lookin'?"

And Dean's little smile was smothered by a mixture of confusion and disapproval. "We were wondering if you know why there's suddenly two dozen dead demons turning up with their eyes burnt out of their heads."

"See, now this is why I don't like hunters. You're all business and zero fun." Gabriel slowly showed himself around the rather small room, peering into the bathroom and raising an eyebrow at the painting of neon palm trees hanging between the beds. "But I got to say, I'm digging the vintage miami nightlife deco you've got going. It's like I've retired and gone to tacky-hell." He sat on the bed opposite Sam and was just simply unwrapping a candy bar when there hadn't been one in his hand the moment before. "So, what about demons?"

"Twenty one demons as far as we can tell," but there were still two crime scenes that they'd yet to visit so it could easily be more, and Sam had his suspicions that more and more would keep turning up each day. "We think one dead angel too."

Gabriel didn't answer right away, taking a bite of chocolate with his molars, letting the candy pull his cheek sideways as he squinched up one eye. "It happens. We're not immortal."

The disinterest in the angel's tone struck Sam. "You're not worried?"

"This fight's been going on since before the first fish dragged itself on land and considered growing thumbs." And there was an echo in Gabriel of that same disdain that Lucifer had towards humans, but with a significant less amount of salt behind it. "It's not the kind of thing I lose sleep over."

But those were the sorts of words that Dean couldn't let lie. "We tell you that you've got a dead brother or sister and you say you're not gonna to lose sleep over it?"

The angel sat there chewing slowly and watching Dean with a rather blank expression before a smile washed over him. "You're cute when you get all offended. Makes those freckles of yours really stand out."

Anger darkened Dean's cheeks. "Bite me, short stack."

"Maybe later." Gabriel offered back with a wink.

And that gave Dean enough of a startled pause that Sam was able to butt in. "We just don't normally see this many dead demons." Seeing as dead demons meant dead human hosts it wasn't so easy to just focus on the silver lining.

"Everything's been a bit crazy upstairs since Luci visited. Most garrisons have come down looking for him," Gabriel shrugged like it wasn't really a big deal. "I keep out of the family business, have for a few millenium, so I can't get you any details on how the hunt's going."

Sam didn't want to ask because he knew that it would sound needy, but he realised with his current company there was really not saving face at this point. So he went for it. "Is Lucifer ok?"

"He's never been in the same zip code as ok." Gabriel laughed. "Have you actually ever met my brother?"

"I mean…" frustration and worry made Sam feel a little sick and he hated it. "I've been trying to call him for a few days and he's not answering."

For just a second Gabriel's eyes widened, but then his smile was back, firmly in place. "Huh. Well, you know what they say about boys being horrible about returning calls. Don't worry so much, Sammy."

Meeting someone else who was equally bad at offering comforting words as his brother was not something that Sam necessarily needed in his life.

"It's just Sam." He corrected out of habit, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

"We've still got a bunch of dead human hosts on our hands." Dean folded his arms over his chest. "If you don't want to worry about your dead sibling that's on you. But our business is hunting monsters and keeping people safe. So you got any idea on whatever is killing all these poor suckers?"

"If I cared enough to look at the bodies I could probably give you the name of the exact angel that did it, but dead bodies are gross and I'm not interested in a field trip to a morgue." He shrugged his narrow shoulders and chomped on the last bit of his candy, talking with slightly sticky sounding words. "My brothers and sisters tend to get a little smite-happy when they find demons. Keep clear, don't get possessed, and you boys'll be just fine."

"That's it?" Sam got to his feet, angry and antsy and realising what a colossal waste of time this whole conversation was shaping up to be. Sure, it was _almost_ helpful to know that it was an angel who'd been killing demons, but there were no notes or lore on how to stop a murdery angel so what good was Gabriel's insight?

"Look, Sammy." Gabriel ignored Sam's earlier protests against the nickname. "I'm not on speaking terms with my family. I'm not going to go step in and tell them to be more careful with the humans they find demons hiding in or else two uncomfortably attractive hunters are going to come after them." He looked one hundred percent unphased by the way that Sam towered over him. "The long imprisoned King of Hell just popped his head up and spit in the eye of the angel left in charge of Heaven and everyone's pissed."

Oddly, Sam had never really considered that Lucifer was the proper King of Hell, and what his return might mean to the hordes of demons who'd possibly been left to their own devices for the last few thousand years.

"Things are going to be a bit messy for a while." Gabriel said like it wasn't a big deal that people were dying en masse and that the feds were looking for a serial killer. "You've got a few dead demons up here―so what? You should see the chaos down in Hell, everyone scrambling now that they realise that the Big Boss is up and about. It's like all the kids suddenly noticing what a mess they've made of the house and then then see the headlights of Dad's car coming up the driveway and they know he's gonna' be mad and they're gonna' get it."

This analogy would mean that Sam would have to accept that someone out there was actually afraid of Lucifer―and he just couldn't. The devil was sort of sweet in his own weird, frustrating kind of way. Nearly almost kind, but not scary.

For some reason, Gabriel was shaking his head at Sam. "I can't tell if you've got balls of steel and are really half as fearless as you act... or just fatally stupid." He sighed wistfully. "I've got to hand it to Luci, though. Even if you turn out to be the dumbest hunter ever, at least you sure are pretty."

Happily, Dean let out a started laughed before thinking better of it and bearing his teeth at their slightly insulting guest, bristling in defense of his Sam. "Hey now, that's my little brother you're talking about and I ain't got a problem punching a fun sized angel."

"You're welcome to try, Sammy's big brother." He dropped his candy wrapper, letting it flutter from his hand to the floor. "I'd love to watch you break your hand on my adorable little face."

Dean shot Sam a look that said ' _never thought I'd miss Lucifer this much_ ' or something along those lines.

"Now, unless you two chuckleheads have more questions…" Gabriel got to his feet, pausing to smile up and down the length of Sam, shaking his head in an appreciative way. "You boys make me consider upgrading my vessel. I like my compact little sport model, but _wowie_ if I'm not tempted to give one of these new, big, luxury ones a test drive."

"I've _uh_ , got a question that isn't about you creepily wanting to ride my brother," Dean offered with something between amusement and disgust coloring his words. "Say we wanna' find a way to save the humans that your brothers an' sisters keep killing. How'd we go about that?"

"Good old fashion exorcism usually does the trick."

"That's only good if we get to them before the murder-y son of a bitch does."

"Well if you're asking how to help them _after_ the fact the outcome isn't lookin' so good." Gabriel stepped around Sam, moving towards the other hunter. "Unless you boys are asking what to do if you run into one of my siblings?"

Dean hadn't been born a hunter, but he sure had been raised as one, and he was as smart as he was reckless; already planning for what he thought should be done about this 'problem' "A little demon exorcism, a little angel exorcism, everyone goes home happy."

Letting out a mock little gasp of shock, Gabriel put a hand to his chest. "Are you asking me to tell two hunter how to hurt an angel?"

"No," Dean sounded like he was selling something with the smile to match. "Not hurt. Just, ya know, move 'em on their way so we've got a chance to kick out some demons and save some people."

"Never try and kid a kidder," Gabriel grinned up at Dean. "My brother warned me about you, Sam's big brother. ' _Don't you tell him anything about anything,_ ' Lucifer said, ' _because I can see the way he looks at me, and that man's goal is to fuck up my day_ '."

His salesman smile turned to a grin, Dean shrugging but not denying anything.

"You boys figured out how to call me―and if you boys want to save some demons, then you can figure out how to get rid of an angel too. All on your own. I'm no snitch." Gabriel raised a hand, fingers curled as he snapped and was simply gone.

"Well…" Sam sagged, letting his shoulders form a defeated hump. "That was oddly unhelpful." And by 'unhelpful' he meant that he still had no idea how Lucifer was doing or why the man wasn't keeping his promises. He very nearly sat himself back down onto the bed but then Gabriel was once more standing in the middle of the room.

Visibly jumping, Dean hissed out a heartfelt, "son of a bitch."

"I forgot something." The tiny blonde almost seemed to apologise before holding out to the older hunter what looked very much like a pie. "I know you said 'ice cream', but we both know you're a sweet cherry pie kind of man." He forcibly handed the pastry to Dean and vanished from the room once more.

Slowly, Sam finished lowering himself to the bed, unsure about all of this, but also kind of amused with the way that Dean looked like a kid at Christmas; standing there just so happily admiring his surprise pie.

Gabriel had been a dead end of information but at least Dean was in a good mood.


	22. Chapter 22

At least the brothers had a direction to go in.

A hunt was still a hunt, even if it involved demons, which both Winchesters would rather not have anything to do with―but something was out there killing people and that meant that they needed to get involved.

Signs of demonic omens were easy enough to follow. Cattle mutilations, crop failures, and electrical storms. All they had to do was find those three happenings in the same area. If only the other things that they hunted were so obvious and easy to track.

Telluride, Colorado fit the bill quite nicely, the trifecta of demon signs all lining up through various news sources. As good of a place as any to go in hopes of finding and stopping another massacre. It was only a day's ride from Vegas, and Dean let Sam drive so that he could sit in the passenger seat and enjoy eating his ill gotten pie straight from the tin like a heathen.

The welcoming glow of Page, Arizona hit the windshield, dazzling lights rising up out of the bleak desert; coming out of the night like a lighthouse. It was a good halfway point in their drive, Sam restless from so long behind the wheel and Dean looking to have been slipping happily into a pie coma.

"Why we gettin' off the freeway?" Dean asked while he licked cherry goo from the back of a knuckle.

"Because it's after midnight and I'm tired of looking at all the _nothing_ out here."

"Bar?"

"It's after midnight." Sam said each word short and sharp, trying to clarify since Dean didn't get it the first time.

"And last call isn't until three. After the week that we've had I think we're deserving of a few beers."

Too many states, too many bodies, and Sam would be lying if he said the offer didn't sound good.

He spotted a likely watering hole tucked in beside an Indian casino, just off the highway. A bar named Last Call. Dean had laughed and pointed to it, bounding in his seat until Sam begrudgingly pulled into the parking lot.

"Come on, man. Don't give me that look. It's just a couple beers, then we can crash in a motel for a few hours until we're ready to get back on the road." Dean rattled off instructions while he set the remnants of his half eaten pie into the backseat. He came around the car as Sam got out, timing it just right to swing an arm around his brother's shoulders. "It feels good to have things back to normal."

"We're hunting down demons, hoping to find them before any angels do. It's a little weird, even for us."

"Don't know about that." Dean grinned as he dragged Sam on towards the bar. "We've killed a couple demons now, and really spent more time around angels than I know I ever wanted to. We got this, man."

Sam hadn't really been worried, but they were pushing the swinging door open and stepping into the smoke heavy, stale air, and conversation was cut short.

It was a bar like hundreds of others that the brothers had been in and it didn't bear description.

"Get us some chairs, I'll grab the drinks." With a push, Dean sent Sam off towards the smattering of tables that served as a barrier between the bar and a couple pool tables. Being on the road constantly made it easy to lose track of time and at first Sam thought that it was pretty busy for the time of night, but glancing at his phone he realised it was a the weekend. Luck let him grab one of the only empty tables, situated a bit too close to a battered old jukebox that was playing outdated country music at an strong volume.

A quick glance around the room out of habit more than anything else eased off those last few threads of reluctance that had been nagging at Sam. It was a college age crowd; lots of small groups or couples just laughing and drinking, only a few lonely wolf types who were a little too old and worn and drinking at the bar alone. A boring kind of place. Boring was a nice change.

When Dean didn't come back right away Sam wasn't too worried; he'd taken out his phone and was checking up on old college friends' lives through their facebook feeds. It was mindless and quiet and with his legs stretched out long beneath the table and his elbows hanging loose, he was significantly more comfortable than he'd been back in the car after hours and hours of driving. After a few minutes, though?

He looked over at the bar and couldn't help but roll his eyes. Dean had his lean on. Comfortable and relaxed with one arm up on the counter and a come-hither smile in place as he chatted up a rather nice looking girl. She was small and dark haired, almost doll-like delicate as she stood in the half circle of Dean's arm.

It wasn't surprising and he didn't begrudge his brother a little distraction, but it was still mildly annoying if only because Sam had sort of wanted that beer.

Brotherly intuition must have been playing havoc on Dean, because about five seconds into being caught flirting he was looking over as Sam's table with an unapologetic grin. Some words were said to the gal leaning against him and she almost glanced over her shoulder at Sam, but obviously was more interested in the man in front of her than his brother on the far end of the room. Dean's arm slipped from the bar, hand settling on the small of her back. Over her head he cast a questioning glance towards Sam, then towards the door and back.

It was permission.

He wanted to know if it was ok to leave Sam alone for a little bit while he got to know his new friend a little better.

And when you spend almost every moment of every day within a five foot radius of another man, almost any excuse for a break was welcomed.

Sam gave his blessing with an exasperated flap of a hand and a roll of his eyes. The ten to twenty minutes that it would take Dean to come sauntering back wasn't nearly enough time to start missing him.

Grinning, with his arm around the pretty young thing's waist, Dean sauntered towards the exit and Sam was left to take himself up to the bar and order his own damn beer.

Seeing as there was no point in hoarding a whole table to himself, he simple took a up residence at one of the bar stools, thanking the man behind the counter with a few dollars and a nod for the beer that was pushed his way. It was some nice quiet down time―and he'd been short on that for the last few days while they'd hauled ass from fresh crime scenes to increasingly less fresh crime scenes.

That quiet time was unexpectedly cut short. Before Sam was even half way through his drink Dean was sitting down beside him with an expression of anger and frustration.

"Wow." Sam tried to keep his smile hidden behind the lip of his glass. "That was quick, even for you."

"She comes up to me at the bar and says ' _have you always been this tall?'_ and I think that's a cute line." It seemed that Dean had returned with extra salt. "I tell her my name and ask if she's got one. ' _Lucy'_ she says. Fuckin' _Lucy_ and all I'm thinkin' is how nice she smells." He nodded to the bartender. "Two shots... I swear to god, Sam. I swear to god if your boyfriend ever pulls that kind of shit on me again I'm gonna' rip his lungs out."

It took Sam half a second to process that, confusion and anger making his chest tight. "Was that… did he find a new body?"

Dean tossed back both shots that the bartender placed before him. "Apparently just had one on loan for a few minutes."

Lots of variations on 'why' rattled through the younger hunter.

"He came to get the colt." Dean grumbled before ordering another pair of shots.

"And?"

The look Dean gave him said that there was a lot that had gone on between going out those doors with a pretty girl on his arm and sitting back down here beside Sam. "Apparently you're too damn distracting for him and he was on a time constraint so he went through me and I hate both of you so much right now."

Plausible.

It sucked, but it was definitely plausible.

Sam considered being angry, but wasn't sure at who to direct it. "You… you sure it was him?"

"Positive." Dean looked only too upset about how very sure he was on this fact. "If you were gonna' have to fall for a feathery douche canoe, why couldn't you fall for his brother? At least we'd have free food and if he got too annoying we could probably cram him in the trunk."

And Sam was more amused than mad and that was probably a healthier coping mechanism, all things considered. He couldn't help but lightly pointing out the fact, "...you had a hand on his ass while you two went out the door."

"I hate him so much," Dean whispered to that hand with a grimace, like his fingers were somehow to blame.

The last dredges of Sam's beer were amber pale in the watery bar light and he didn't think that he could be thirsty enough to finish it off. "...did you kiss him when you got outside before you knew it was him?"

The face Dean pulled gave no answer one way or another to the question on the table. Shot number three went down without hesitation however and the last one was pushed towards his little brother like a peace offering.

Sam had to quietly come to terms with the feeling he could no longer _not_ call jealousy if he wanted to stay honest with himself. Any way that things went out in the parking lot he wasn't going to hold against his brother (Lucifer was a whole other story, though), and nothing he could think to say was going to be worse for Dean than whatever mental anguish he looked to be going through.

Ignoring the beer and going for the shot that had been shuffled his direction, Sam tossed it back―the cheap whiskey burning his throat like a punishment he hadn't earned. "Is he… did he seem ok?"

" _Ok_?" The noise Dean made was too bitter to be a proper laugh. "The son of a bitch was wearing a girl with some of the nicest damn legs I'd ever seen and getting his everything-killing gun after assuring me that it wasn't for him because he doesn't _need_ it. Apparently it's for a vessel that he's 'courting', whatever that means. I don't know what's with the guy, Sammy, but he's no good. Do yourself―hell, do us all a favor, and just say NO."

Good advice that he'd never take. "Thanks for that public service announcement, Scruff McGruff, but…" Sam didn't have a good way to finish that sentence. "You ready to go, or you want another drink?"

"Want's got nothing to do with it." Dean grumped and ordered them both another much needed beer.

They spent a few hours in a dingy motel room, catching sleep before they'd get back on the road out towards Telluride. Dean had had enough to drink back at the bar that he was out like a light, snoring with in a minute of falling face down on the bed closest to the door.

Lightly buzzed, but not enough that he couldn't drive them to the motel in the first place, Sam took his time actually undressing before bed. Sitting on the saggy mattress and methodically untying his sneakers before kicking them across the room with a little more force than necessary.

"Don't know if you can hear me, Lucifer," Sam whispered, not wanting to wake his brother. "But that was pretty shitty of you tonight. I'd _distract_ you? What kind of excuse is that? It's a bad one, is what it is." He ran his hands through his hair and looked woefully down at the beige carpet with a soft and grumpy sniff. He didn't mean the majority of the words, at least that's what he told himself. Mostly he was just trying to get any kind of response from the other man. "I'm glad you haven't been answering me. Glad I'm here every night worrying about your sorry ass for apparently no good reason 'cause you're just fine. Glad you didn't even give me a second glance tonight. You were only here for that stupid gun―the one I got killed for by the way, so thanks for that. Glad we could help you 'court you next vessel' or whatever the hell that means." He flopped backwards onto the mattress, his slightly slurred prayer tapering off with a lame, "hope that poor sucker works out better for you than I did."

It didn't seem to matter what he said. Just like it hadn't mattered for days now. No one was answering him, and Sam hated that he was even trying again. Hope made him stupid―and a weird feeling of being brushed off made him irritable. He whispered a few unsavory insults towards the devil just for good measure before closing his eyes and getting whatever sleep he could manage.

 **.:.**

Colorado was kind of quiet, if you didn't count the demons.

Few things were half as quiet as a ski resort town in the summer months. Most shops were either closed for the season or had very short hours of operation. Grocery store, post office, and police station and the few buildings in between seemed to be the only places in the center of town with any life moving around, though they'd seen a few farms on their way into town that had shown some signs of life.

"You the boys from the Department of Agriculture?" Sheriff Valdes, a woman with grey at her temples and a dubious frown, had stood up from her desk after the deputy had cracked her door open and announced that she had visitors. Half of her lunch lying there beside her keyboard, and it was obvious that the brothers had come at an inconvenient time.

"Yes, ma'am." Dean flashed his counterfeit badge and one of those smiles of his that worked on law enforcement nearly all the time.

"I didn't know that Joskin's and Halber's crops were worth a call to the USDA." She sat back down and nodded for the brothers to do the same. "It's just a bad year for things, and if those old coots were the ones making the phone call, dragging you boys out here for no reason I'm sorry."

"Well, with the crops and the cattle, our superiors thought it was best to come check and make sure there wasn't a chemical spill or something."

"Cattle? You mean the two dead ones last week up at Halber's? That was a bear or a mountain lion. No 'chemical spill' ripped those milk cows in pieces."

And that was going to be fun to look at, Sam thought to himself.

"Still, we've got to check everything. You know how it is." Dean shrugged. "The higher ups just want to cross off any possibilities."

"Alright," she shrugged and gave them an almost sympathetic look. "Think you boys are wasting your time, but I'll have my deputy give you their addresses and you're welcome to look around. You let us know if you find anything."

"Of course." Sam promised and stood.

Small pleasantries were exchanged and they left the woman to her lunch. The Deputy out front seemed even less enthusiastic about the USDA looking into something as boring as a few failed crops, but gave them the information they wanted all the same.

Dean wanted to go check out the dead cows first, because naturally. Luck was on Sam's side and they got to visit the rather uneventful Joskin farm first because it was on the way. Allen Joskin and his three sons were all pretty quick to blame faulty irrigation systems that they'd purchased and installed early that spring. Apparently there was a settlement already in progress with the manufacturing company and the Winchesters thanked them for their time and moved on.

"You really think that was just some janky sprinkler system?" Dean asked as he drove with his elbows, fidgeting with the cuffs of his button down shirt.

"Don't know." Though, Sam hoped not, otherwise they were just wasting their time out here while in some other city demon hosts were getting fried, and countless other flavors of monsters were doing only god knows what. "But just because they didn't smell sulfur or anything doesn't mean there's not still demons around."

"No weird deaths out here."

"I don't know if demons only kill people," granted the only two that they'd run into so far had either been the one who had killed their mother or the one that had been crashing airplanes full of victims… so it wasn't a great track record so far. "I mean, according to lore they're supposed to just generally cause mayhem and disasters wherever they go. You saw the security footage of the ones in Vegas, mostly they just looked like they were helping people lose at craps tables and slot machines."

"So they encourage a little delinquency. What the hell kind of trouble can demons stir up in the off season out here?"

"Other than that?" Sam pointed out the windshield towards roughly ten circling carrion birds.

Dean narrowed his eyes and took the nearest turn off, a rough dirt road that cut between some grazing land and an orchard with only dead and scraggly trees clinging to the dirt. "Think that's gonna' be our dead cows?"

"You think they'd leave them just sitting out for a few days?"

A shrug was his brother's only answer until they got close enough to see the hulking corpses. The Impala crawled to a stop and Dean was unbuckling his seat belt.

"You really want to go poke at the dead cows, don't you?"

Dean had walked around to the trunk and was pulling out a .9mm gun that got tucked into the back of his pants, and a machete that he kept bare in one hand like a threat. "Hey, I'm curious what a cattle mutilation looks like. Dad's journal was vague."

"Well, great. If it looks _cool_ we can take a picture and add it into that section." Sam took nothing from the trunk, but closed it after his brother. He wasn't going to arm himself against two dead cows.

The two got to navigate a barbed wire fence―holding it down for one another and both rather grateful for long legs that kept them a safe distance from the sharp barbs―and make their way across the muddy pasture.

Death has a particular smell that any hunter was more than familiar with. But a recently dead and average sized human body had nothing on the two bovine that had been left out in the summer heat for two days. There was bitter sweet and very wrong stench of rot that was so easy to identify, and then there was something underlying and so very much worse, and naturally because of the size of the bodies that stink was magnified.

Sam started gagging before they got close enough to see any details.

Covering his mouth with a sleeve, Dean had to stop walking. "Christ. That reeks."

"This sucks."

"Man, let's just go back to the car and talk to those farmers. I can't―" he made a soft retching sound before spitting into the grass and turning back around to head towards where they'd left the car only a few yards off.

The Halber farm was less than a quarter mile down the road, and realizing that they could smell a new but equally bad stench as they got out of the car was a really bad sign.

"Fuck." Dean was shrugging out of his I'm-an-official-something-or-other suit jacket and grabbing up the machete from where he'd laid it on the seat between him and Sam. "What is that?"

"Sulfur and death?" Sam offered. At least it wasn't quite as bad or as strong as the cows had been. He took off his jacket as well and pulled a shotgun and a handful of rocksalt filled shells from the trunk. Usually they'd try to keep up appearances a little, stay leaning into their disguises, but they could see how the front door of the farm house was hanging off its hinges and one of the front windows was lined with spiderweb cracks and smeared darkly on the inside.

They'd expected to find a crime scene, and to be fair they definitely got one. The Halber family, a wife and husband and two kids were really dead. The parents' throats slit and blood long since dried, their bodies crumpled on the couch like they'd been watching television and been taken completely unaware. The kids however? Son and daughter, both of them somewhere between highschool and old enough to drink, had their eyes sockets dark and crispy. Another angel killing like the last dozen corpses the brothers had looked at and what fucking luck that they hadn't gotten there just a little sooner.

What came as a bit of a surprise was the elaborate writing around the doorframe that they'd had to cross through to enter the room. They didn't even notice it until they'd made a sweep of the room.

Dean lowered his gun and sighed like this was more of an annoyance than anything else. "Man, what the hell is that?"

Sam wished that he could read it, wished he could give any kind of guess what it meant. "I think it's Enochian?" He didn't have a clue how to pronounce any of it, but he recognised the curling script as letters similar to what Lucifer had scribbled onto his cast months back, though the handwriting wasn't as nice. Then again, the devil had written in sharpie and whoever put this here had used blood, so there was bound to be a little natural favoritism.

"Should we worry about that?"

Probably.

There came the soft crash of wings and Sam instantly felt his breath catch with a horrible pavlovian response. He turned around, back towards the four bodies with some lunatic hope of seeing his favorite grumpy blonde disaster.

It was… an unexpected vessel. An older man, probably in his mid fifties, shaved head, warm dark skin, and a thin upper lip. He wasn't an un-handsome man with his broad shoulders and a broad chest under a suit much nicer than what either of the brothers were wearing.

"Lovin' the new diggs, Satan." Dean looked rather unimpressed. "Nice to see you switchin' it up."

That answering smile though. That was not Lucifer's smile. It was something different and malicious. "I am Uriel, and you two little savages were not what I was expecting to find walking through here."

Sam had a bad feeling. A very bad feeling.

Uriel came a closer, moving like a cat stalking prey, all slow roll of muscle and menace. "I've been waiting for anything touched by Heaven or Hell to come poking around. Hunters, though?" He looked between the Winchesters, lingering a little too long on Sam. "It's not often I get to be surprised."

Days and days back Gabriel had dropped some sideways comment about Lucifer having hidden Sam away from peeping eyes, and the young hunter felt this creeping concern for what the devil might have done to him.

"I'd rather not have to talk to you mud-monkeys any longer than I need to," Uriel made his brothers seem positively friendly by comparison, "so I'm only going to ask once. What business do you have with Lucifer?"

"Fuck off, ya feathery creep." Dean knew just what to say at times like this.

Out of the whole three angels that Winchesters had met so far, Uriel seemed to have the least amount of patience. He flicked one annoyed hand in Dean's direction and then the hunter hit the floor like he'd had his strings cut.

"Dean!" Sam tried to run to his brother's side, terrified that Dean wasn't making any kind of effort to get back up.

But with another flick of a hand Uriel put a stop to any such attempts of help.

Sam was slammed backwards into a wall, breath knocked out of him and the back of his head instantly throbbing from the force of impact. He'd dented the wall like a drunken fist fight, loose plaster crumbling down around his shoulders and onto the floor that his feet couldn't quite reach. His ears were ringing and the room had started to swim in and out of focus. Sam couldn't seem to draw a breath, a weight on his chest, pinning him up there like a insect on display.

"You stink of him." Uriel stepped over Dean's prone body and came to stand before Sam, looking up at the hunter where he hung nailed up to the wall. "Now why does some insignificant little human bear the mark of Lucifer like a blessing?"

The angel had that horrifying level of calm that only Bond villains seemed to get, utter confidence and superiority, not batting an eye, just watching the hunter, five bodies laid out behind him in a grisly backdrop.

Sam didn't answer and not being able to breath had an awful lot to do with that. He couldn't help but think of the sleepy conversation between him and the devil when they were both laying out too injured to move. So clearly he could hear Lucifer's distress playing over in his mind. Worried that he'd possibly let part of his grace get mingled too tightly with Sam's soul during transit.

Uriel raised his eyebrows, cocking his head to one side in something close to disbelief. "You're the reason he's out of his cage? A little insignificant speck like you?" The angel had made none of the promises to stay out of Sam's head that Lucifer had. Easily reading Sam and every thought that came screaming through his mind.

Panic.

Nothing but panic at the realization that his mind wasn't safe, and that he'd very likely underestimated how overpowered angels might actually be in comparison to the other things that he'd spent his life hunting.

But how was he to keep his thoughts in order when everything was jumbling together behind the white a red lights bursting behind his eyes? Sam thought that he might be dying where he hung, his fingers and toes going numb while he silently suffocated. It took a surprising amount of time to suffocate someone into unconsciousness; just another one of those things that movies never seem to get right. An average and healthy human could hold their breath for at least a minute, Sam could go a bit longer, but he was pushing on that boundary right now, the edges of the world growing dim.

He couldn't die twice in one week.

His brother would never let him live it down.

Proper words weren't an option, and Sam didn't have any bargaining chip to get himself down from the wall. He knew a banishing sigil, he could picture it so clearly in his mind―for all that good that that would do him.

"A hunter with a hint of an archangel's grace inside of him." Uriel wrinkled his nose. "Truly one of the most blasphemous things I've had to witness since coming down here."

Sam found that hard to believe, all things considered.

"Where is he?" Uriel asked and seemed to just wait for Sam's mind to fill in the answer, since he obviously didn't want or need the hunter to speak aloud.

There was no way for Sam to answer Uriel. He didn't know where Lucifer was, and he was more than aware, in those moments hanging up there dying, that he had absolutely no way of contacting the devil.

"If you don't know where he is then I don't have any more use for you." Uriel looked nearly bored as he raised a hand―

But Lucifer was suddenly standing beside him, pale and a little rumpled in the same damn jeans and T-shirt combo that he'd been wearing since the first night Sam saw him, simple fury plain on his face as he took hold of the other angel's wrist. And anger was actually rather frightening to see on him, one of those whole body sorts of feelings that was more a state of being than a proper emotion.

Sam was sure that if he wasn't currently being crushed into a wall and dying he'd have made an effort to be slightly afraid.

When Lucifer spoke it was with this flat, dead sort of quality which somehow made all that anger much worse to witness. "I remember telling you when we were kids, little brother, not to touch my things."

Uriel's eyes went wide with something close to fear.

Abruptly the floor came up to meet Sam, the hunter crumpling and gasping, choking to get enough air as the weight on his chest was suddenly lifted. He felt like he'd been suffocated. Like he'd run a marathon in record time. Like his lungs had been stolen and only just returned to him moments before it was too late. His heart was thundering, and for a few agonising seconds all he could hear were his own strangled breaths.

An oddly heavy _thud_ shook the floor against his cheek and he managed to focus his splotchy gaze enough to see Uriel laying out where he'd been dropped on the stained carpet alongside the other bodies.

"Sam?" The anger had ebbed from Lucifer's voice, replaced by nothing but worry as he looked down at the hunter, his too blue eyes bright with concern.

"Check― Dean." Sam wheezed, all his priorities firmly in line.

"You know, people are normally overwhelmed with gratitude and say 'thank you' when you save their life, but sure. I can check on your brother." Lucifer put his hands in the air like he was fed up with things, but a relieved little smile had crept over him.

Without the ability to do more than lay there on the floor gasping like a fish out of water, Sam could only watch with worry as the devil crouched down beside Dean and placed his hands on the still unmoving hunter.

Pantig out a violent noise, Dean sat bolt upright, wild eyes searching the room like he expected to need to defend himself; needlessly as at this point everyone was on the floor and rather harmless. Dean visibly relaxed but then did a double take when he saw who was touching him, and Lucifer got a sharp punch to the shoulder for his help.

"Ow?" The angel asked with a soft chuckle.

"Stop touching me, you son of a bitch." Dean aggressively scooted away, rubbing his chest where the other man's hands had rested, getting himself some space and calling over to his brother, "Sammy, you ok over there?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm…" Sam tried to sit up and found his body slow to respond, arms shaking as he pushed away from the floor. "I'll be ok."

"So… no one's going to tell me thank you?" Lucifer sat back on his heels, folding his arms over his drawn up knees and looking between the brothers. Not really expectant so much as amused. "Sam, my brother removed your lungs, and _you_ ," he stuck his chin in Dean's direction, "you were dead again. I think that earns me at least a little 'good job' or something. Don't you?"

Dean made a face like he'd tasted something bad. "Yeah well, if you think I'm kissing you again in trade for your help then you got another thing coming, Satan."

"You wish." Lucifer snorted softly before looking back over at Sam. "But if _you_ wanted to express your gratitude in the form of… and why are you mad at me _this_ time?"

The young hunter was more than willing to go over the whole list. He'd start at the top with, "Where the hell have you been?"

"Not in Hell!" Lucifer grinned for just a second and then sighed with a look of disappointment. "Ok, come on, that was actually kind of funny…because you asked, and I'm supposed to… no?" He sighed again, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. "I've been out looking for a new body, I _did_ tell you that I'd need to, before I left."

He had to clear his throat, everything dry and aching but at the same time so infinitely better than he'd been only a minute before that he was willing to overlook the discomfort. "What happened to 'I'll come if you call'? Because I've been praying to you almost every night and―"

"Hey, if you two girls are gonna' have one of these little lover's spats, can we please not do it in the room with all the rotting bodies?" Dean's request was not unreasonable. "Can we also please not do it with me anywhere near y'all? Because if I have to listen to this shit I'm going to do something drastic."

Sam wasn't sure that he'd ever heard Dean use the word 'drastic' before, which made it enough of a threat on its own that he was willing to take it rather seriously. "Right," and he meant it as a soft sorry to his brother. It was harder than it should have been to get his legs back under him, but rather stubbornly he batter Lucifer's hands away when the man came to his side and offered a hand. "I'm fine."

"There have been so many times since I've met you, that you've told me those exact words," Lucifer nearly whispered, this soft confession just for the two of them and not meant for Dean's ears. "And every time I've wanted to pull you close and press my face into your hair and let you know that you're really not and it's ok to admit it sometimes."

It was like expecting a bullet and instead getting a soft peck on the cheek. Sam looked uneasily at the man beside him. "Don't even start. I'm so mad at you―"

"You're _always_ mad at me." Lucifer complained without any heat behind it. "I've just come to accept it as part of your personality at this point."

Dean was ignoring them, collecting his gun from where it had been dropped, stepping over what remained of the angel Uriel (but not without an amused little scoff at his body), and heading out through the broken front door. "I'm going to the car, Samantha and Lucille. You two coming or not?"

" _Lucille_?" The devil looked utterly baffled.

"I will leave you both here. Don't think I won't."

He would too.

Sam had no doubt that his brother wouldn't hesitate to leave this two man embodiment of a headache in his rearview mirror.


	23. Chapter 23

It was a shame that there was nothing interesting to look at. No scenic roadside distractions, and Dean sure as hell wasn't helping anything as he drove only twenty miles over the speed limit in a vaguely eastern direction. There was a Scorpion's cassette in the player, so well worn that the baseline warbled a little; turned up loud enough that conversation was almost impossible.

Almost.

"I can still feel you breathing on my neck." Sam grumbled as he counted mile markers, watching the side view mirror out of his peripheral so he could keep tabs on the way that Lucifer was once again creeping as close as the backseat would allow him to.

"If you were sitting beside me like I'd asked you to then it wouldn't be a problem."

Not even if there was a gun to his head would Sam get back there.

In the mirror he could watch the way that Lucifer had sprawled himself out to bask over the naugahyde seat covers like some animal sunning itself. The wary young hunter couldn't _not_ notice the way that the the devil was once more leaning forward to hide himself behind Sam's own reflection.

Sam was almost positive that the devil was smelling him, but he wasn't willing to turn around to make sure.

He could just ignore it.

He could do his best to ignore it.

He really wanted to ignore the way that that soft ghost like breaths made the hair on the back of his neck prickle.

"Luci, why are you still here?" Sam let his gaze grow distant and unfocused while the fields rolled on past the windows, flat and featureless; nothing interesting at all to look at and it was so very easy to focus on the warmth at his back.

"Making sure my boys are safe."

Dean answered rather defiantly, "We're fine, and not yours."

Resting his chin on the back of the seat, cheek brushing Sam's shoulder, Lucifer peered at both brothers. "I know that most monsters quake in their little monster boots when they hear the name Winchester. But angels…? My siblings are wolves and you boys are nothing more than lambs. They will chew you up and spit you out."

"You know y'all aren't even half as scary as you seem to think." Dean didn't do any better with warnings than he did with threats, even well meaning ones. "He wasn't anything more than a condescending son of a bitch, like you."

"Less than an hour ago you were dead." Lucifer skated an index finger along the seat's stitching, tapping a soft pattern as he spoke. "And I'd hate to set a precedent for something like 'instant death' to just be nothing more than a mild inconvenience for you. I wouldn't want you to grow reckless thinking that some not scary, condescending, son of a bitch like me will just _always_ come around to save you."

Dean was making faces at the road, obviously annoyed.

"Next time I'll just let you sort it out on your own…" Lucifer tugged the edge of Dean's short sleeve, adjusting it. "You _can_ come back from the dead on your own, right?"

"Fuck you, man." And Dean turned up the volume on his tape, pushing the capacity of the Impala's speakers, shrugging his shoulder away from the touch.

Sam wasn't as good at ignoring (even with as hard as he was trying) and he found himself looking down at those blue eyes that were notably brighter than last time he spent too long looking into them. It should, by all rights, be a relief to see that the devil was doing better than normal with that little bounce in his step and a literal twinkle in his eye. Sam had spent too many days worrying about this man here and all the possible reasons that he'd been MIA.

It wasn't comforting to have him back.

It wasn't a relief.

It only made Sam angry.

The childish streak in him urged to elbow the devil right in his face. It was at the perfect height and so very defenseless.

Instead Sam leveled the man with a steady glare before pointedly turning his body towards the passenger window.

Even with the way that he was sitting up against Sam's back, so stupidly close, there was no proper way for Lucifer to easily talk and be heard over the cassette tape. Little things like that didn't seem to bother him however, and when the devil spoke his words curled through the hunter's mind like smoke. An echo, a thought, but so alien that there was no way to mistake where they were coming from.

"I heard you every night," soft and low like an apology. "I'm not sure that you're allowed to pray with that much anger, but I loved it. I loved knowing that even if you were furious at me for not being there with you, that you were fine, and that you were worried about me. Maybe you even missed me just a bit."

"I wasn't _worried_ about you, you jerk." Sam mouthed the words, assuming that even without anything more than a choked breath and quiet lies, they would still reach their intended target.

"How do you have so much to say to me when I'm gone, but now I'm right here and you won't even look at me?"

"You lied."

"I've never lied to you."

"You said you'd come if I called―"

"I'm here aren't I?" The feeling of confusion mixed with Lucifer's words, the emotion seeping into the cracks of Sam's mind and muddling his thoughts.

He folded his arms over his chest. Done with this odd conversation that was rattling around in his head. He didn't like it. Didn't like that soft little reminder that apparently angels could simply butt in at any time and rifle through his thoughts. Didn't like sharing an emotion with Lucifer. It was far, far too intimate.

Unfortunately Lucifer could be just as petty and irritable as Sam when he wanted to be. The devil didn't like being ignored.

"As much as I'd love to spend the next hundred miles folded down into this cramped, metal box with you, admiring your very strong, cold shoulder―I don't have time for this right now." He reached an arm between the seats and tapped the radio, casting the car into a rather deafening silence.

They started losing speed rapidly, Dean half turning to look back at the devil like he wanted to take a swing at him. "You don't touch another man's radio."

"That's nice." Lucifer didn't sound at all like he meant it. "But I'm not going to talk over whatever that noise was."

"That _noise_ is 'Savage Amusement' and it's the Scorpions' best―" Dean made a strange sound, but no more words came out of him.

The devil had flicked irritably at the older hunter, saying, "I'm not going to talk over your noise either."

And Sam watched in wonder tinted with worry as Dean's mouth moved but no sounds came out, his brother going from surprise to anger so quick that his cheeks were turning red. The Impala was being pulled off the road and Dean looked like he was going to climb into the back seat and start something.

"No," was Lucifer's whole response to the physical threat trying to come at him. He placed a hand on Dean's shoulder and the volatile hunter stilled, swaying slightly and looking moments away from going to sleep. The devil kept his hand in place, drawing idle circles with his thumb, and looked between the two men in the front seat. "I have things I have to get back to, and you two are going to go back to your regular run of the mill sorts of hunts and stay away from my family."

Sam struggled with wanting to check if his nearly unconscious brother was alright or not, but he didn't think that whatever was happening was going to be any kind of permanent. That small comforting thought made it easier to focus on the important thing here. "Your family is killing human hosts. A _lot_ of humans."

As of yesterday morning the news was putting the death count past fifty people here in the states alone, with similar stories starting to come in from Europe and Asia. At this point law enforcement had gone from looking for a serial killer to a cult. A world wide cult.

Lucifer rubbed at his lower lip and sighed. "And?"

" _And_?" Sam considered doing what his brother was currently incapable of, taking a swing at the unfeeling son of a bitch in the back seat. "They're people and they're dying when they don't have to."

The look on the devil's face said simply that he couldn't be bothered to worry about _humans_.

He hated trying to explain sympathy to something like Lucifer. "It's not ok and you should at least try and pretend to care how not ok this is."

"Or," Lucifer got a little smile as he laid out an insane offer, "I can go and make sure that all my little demons are back home safe, and I happily go on not giving a damn about what happens to any humans other than who's here in front of me."

Sam wondered if that extended to Dean, and realised that it didn't really matter. He'd never understand why, at some point, he'd become someone special in Lucifer's eyes. Soul like a summer storm notwithstanding. He didn't want to be special. He'd never wanted to be special.

"I don't care what motivation you wanna' cling to, Luci." Sam resisted the impulse to lean in closer as he spoke. "I don't know or really want to know what sort of relationship to or power you have over all the demons in the world―because if we're being honest here it kind of scares me to remember that you might actually be The Devil and what that means. But if you can fix it and help all these people to _not_ get burnt up from the inside out, DO IT."

It was hard not to notice the way that Lucifer watched him mouth while he spoke, and Sam was feeling more than a little self conscious by the time he finished his plea.

A slow, almost wistful smile crept over Lucifer before he glanced upward to meet the hunter's eye. "For you? Anything."

And Sam hated it, because the words only made him suspicious and reminded him how angry he was at this man for all the little things that he _didn't_ do.

"Here. Before I go," Lucifer slid his grip from Dean's arm to his chest, doing the same to Sam with his other hand, and his touch was cold despite the summer heat. "Usually I would ask before touching you, but I don't need permission to give you a gift. Loopholes are fun like that."

Whatever the 'gift' was left Sam on the wrong side of a whimper as a feeling like being blasted with buckshot seared over his ribs. Beside him, his big brother was reacting much the same, or at least as well as he could through the sleepy haze he still seemed to be under.

"W-what did―"

"Just carved a bit of protection into your bones to keep you safe when I can't. Uriel shouldn't be able to track you back down if he's suicidal enough to try." Though he let go of Dean, Lucifer still kept his fingers splayed wide over Sam's chest. "Nothing from Heaven or Hell will be able to find you… myself included, unfortunately. So if you do decide to need me, you'll have to tell me where you've gone."

Spite made Sam want to point out what a fat lot of good calling had done so far, but Lucifer was gone before he had the chance, leaving a cold spot at the center of his chest.

Dean came back to his normal feisty self with a sputter and a few well chosen words. "If that son of a bitch bastard bad touches me one more time I swear I'm gonna rip his fucking lungs out. You tell your boyfriend, you tell him, he can take his angelic 'protection' and shove it up his ass."

"Tell him yourself." Sam rubbed fitfully at the lingering touch he could still feel. "I'm not calling him anymore."

With a laugh that held absolutely zero humor, Dean started the car back up, rubbing his chest for a moment before turning on his turn signal. "Yeah, I bet you a million dollars that you do."

"You don't have a million dollars. Dean."

"I bet you all the money in my wallet."

"That's got to be, what, like eight bucks."

Shooting his brother a dry look, Dean pulled the Impala back onto the highway. "Alright, smart ass. I bet you eight bucks that you start missing that bastard enough by the end of the week to call him."

Sam swore that he'd be stronger than that. Told himself that if he only tried hard enough that he'd get over this childhood crush on a man who rarely ever did anything other than make him feel crazy with frustration.

But some promises were asinine and Sam knew that he was only crossing his heart and hoping to die over the dumbest thing―because if he could backstep his way out of these feeling by force of will alone he'd have done it months if not years ago.

For whatever it was worth, by the end of the week Sam wasn't pacing a motel room trying desperately to talk himself out of making a call that he knew he'd regret. No such longing or romantic notions plagued him like some lovesick fool. Instead, he was quietly cursing the devil for taking the Colt from the brothers before they had a chance to put it to use.

They'd found themselves a phoenix down in New Mexico and coincidently the only record of any one ever having faced one was a hunter back in the eighteen hundreds who had commissioned Samuel Colt to make a gun for him. Though, it wasn't ironic it was still a hell of an inconvenient coincidence.

"If you don't call him, I will." Dean was sitting there, cleaning his gun because the aggressive little movements always seemed to calm him.

"We can figure this out without him."

His brother jammed the long thin brush down the dismantled barrel, scrubbing quietly for a few seconds. "I'll even let you keep your eight dollars, Sammy."

"It is _not_ about the money."

"No, it's about the man who took three bullets to the head, got back up the next day, and burned his way out of the morgue. So swallow your pride, call your damn boyfriend and get the gun back."

"Look, we don't even know where he went when he left the morgue." Sam rubbed at a temple, frustrated and stubborn. "We don't need a special murder gun when we don't even have a clue where to find the thing we plan to shoot."

Dean was rolling his eyes because only Dean was capable of hearing all the things that Sam wasn't saying. He set aside the bits of gun, shoving them across the mattress and away from himself like he needed to make room. He clasped his grease stained hands before his chest and started to bow his head before pausing. "If you're still butt hurt about him not returning your calls and you wanna fuck off before he gets here now would be the time to step out and get a soda or whatever."

"I'm not… I don't really care about him not answering me for a week." He crossed his arms over his chest. "But I am thirsty," _and he's not going to come when you call any more than he came for me_ , Sam finished that bitter thought with a grumpy nod before grabbing his wallet and leaving for the Starbucks on the corner.

And it would be a lie to say that he wasn't filled with a quiet kind of rage when he returned and saw the Colt innocently sitting on the nightstand between beds. He set his brother's black coffee with a little too much milk down beside the gun and went to his laptop.

He'd left his search windows for phoenix lore open and he sat there not looking at them rather pointedly. So what if Lucifer let them borrow the gun back, that was a good thing. Not the kind of thing that should make him angry. Jealousy was stupid like that.

It didn't help that he could see Dean smiling over there, not smug, not even in an I-told-you-so kind of way. Just smiling like he found something funny.

" _What_?"

Dean reached over and picked up his coffee, pulling off the lid and blowing into the cup like it would somehow magically cool it off enough to drink. "Nothing."

"How many bullets we have?" Because if his brother wanted to play dumb that was fine. Sam was more than happy to try pretend that this was all fine and didn't bother him one bit.

"Two."

That got him sitting up straight. " _Two_? There were thirteen when he took it."

"Yeah, an' apparently now we've only got two. So no missing when we go to kill this thing."

Missing shots was simply not the Winchester way. Dad had drilled them on their marksmanship like it was life or death, telling his sons (who'd at the time hardly been big enough to fire a gun without the kickback knocking them on their asses) that sometimes you only got one shot, so ' _you fuckin' make it count_ '.

That whiplash of a childhood trauma memory paled in the confusing light of wondering just what the hell had Lucifer been up to that he'd needed eleven 'kill anything' bullets. What was it that an archangel couldn't kill on its own that it needed that kind of help? Had he needed help, and if yes, then why hadn't he asked for it?

He was thinking himself in circles and it wasn't helping anything.

Luckily Dean knew just how to shake him out of it.

"He didn't _give_ us the gun." He sipped quietly with his eyebrows raised like he was anticipating Sam doing something spectacular in response and he didn't want to miss it. "Your little Luci-Lu wanted a trade, like he always does."

"What did he want this time?" Sam didn't want to know, but he couldn't help himself from asking.

"Don't know if it's cause he's the devil and stories are always sayin' that he's supposed to be a sucker for betting and trading, or what's going on with him. But, man, I just keep thinking of that song ' _Devil went down to Georgia_ ' and I'm wondering if he's got a quota we don't know about, and who would he have to answer to if he's falling behind? I mean, he's The Devil. Isn't he kind of his own boss?"

Sam wasn't sure how to answer that, but it was almost funny to think that this was the only part of the lore that turned out to be accurate.

But he wasn't interested in being teased about this, no matter how much fun his brother was obviously having with it. "Dean, what did he want for the Colt?"

"Nothing I wasn't happy to give him." The wink that accompanied that offered no comfort.

Having a brother wasn't fair sometimes. Not when they knew every button to press.

Since he was positive that if he said anything at all it would be insanely incriminating, Sam chose to sit there at his computer and think all kinds of irrational things. Well, maybe not wholly irrational, because he knew what sorts of deals that Lucifer tended to offer.

Dean was grinning.

Sitting there on his bed, holding his coffee and just smiling as he watched all sorts of unspoken accusations tumbling through his baby brother.

Not a single one of them would have held up.

Sam knew too well that Dean's dislike of the devil outweighed pretty much any of the possibilities that were being offered by that teasing grin.

"He wanted to know how you're doing." Dean finally said, tucking his smile behind the edge of his cup. "That was all… son of a bitch traded the gun just to know how you were... since he hadn't heard from you in a while."

Sam did his best not to smile because that sounded very much like something that Lucifer might do and it made him weirdly happier than it should.

"What you two have―" Dean thought for a moment, choosing his words carefully, "it's fuckin' stupid. You noticed that, right?"

It would have been almost impossible to have missed that fact.

Dean liked lecturing, coming from a place of moral superiority that didn't actually exist. "Don't get me wrong, it's real convenient that he's got it as bad for you as you've got for him. It means that he's willing to watch your back, and I don't have to like him to trust that he'd kill a man to keep you safe." Dean grinned when Sam sputtered and started to argue. "He was even willing to throw in where to find our phoenix for just a little extra."

Extra?

 _Extra_?

There was no way that that was a good thing.

A little extra for Lucifer could only go a little bad for Sam.

"And you told him no, right?"

"Yeah, Sammy. I told him we didn't need anyone making life easier for us by telling where the monster was hiding out." By his tone of voice it was very apparent that Dean had done the opposite. "No I didn't tell him 'no'. I'm the one who made the suggestion in the first place because who am I to stand between a man and his sweetheart?"

It would have been a waste of time to rise to that bait and Sam really would rather have a productive morning, so instead they set out to kill a phoenix.

According to Lucifer's advice, the Winchesters went hunting out in the desert, few miles south of an Indian reservation, in a ghost town that was mostly dirt and tumbleweeds filling in the empty spaces between sun bleached buildings with broken windows.

The monster named Elias Finch was easy enough to find, being the only living soul out here, and easier still to recognise from the autopsy photos and the security footage that the brothers had looked at the day before. It helped to remove any doubt or hesitation they might have had seeing as he he sort of got the jump on them and almost lit Sam on fire in the process.

A wash of panic and pain, and Sam was slapping at the fire that burned his shirt sleeve from wrist to shoulder, getting as much distance as he could from the monster who looked only too much like a man.

Dean's first shot had gone wide, apparently the kickback on the old revolver along with the ear splitting sound startled all three men. The bullet clipped the phoenix in the shoulder, which slowed him down and made him real mad instead of real dead.

The second shot however? Right between the eyes and Sam had never seen, and hoped to never see again, something die quite like that. Red light crackling along the man's body, curlin smoke, and he was lit up like a roman candle before he even hit the ground. In less than a minute there was nothing left of him except for a smear of ashes in the dust and dirt.

"You ok, man?" Dean nodded to his brother, tucking the gun into the waistband of his jeans.

"No," Sam gritted through his teeth, looking at the blisters up his left arm. They probably wouldn't scar, but it was going to hurt something awful for at least a week. "We restock the first aid kit?"

Dean took his wrist gingerly, holding his arm up and looking at the damage with a sympathetic wince. "Not for burns, no. I think we've got a gallon of water in the back seat though."

"Great." They'd stop in the nearest town and get some aloe or something, but he'd get to suffer for a while in the meantime. Nothing hurt quite like a good second degree burn.

"Help me get some of the ashes." Came Dean's odd request as he let go of Sam's arm and pulled out a couple little ziplock baggies.

Aside from being in pain and part of the building slowly starting to burn around them, Sam couldn't really come up with any kind of good reason why he'd want to do that.

A bag was pressed into his uninjured hand before Dean crouched down and started scraping up little handfuls.

"Your boyfriend said he can use it to make new bullets." He said over his shoulder like he was fine doing little favors like this every day for Satan.

It made Sam unwillingly question exactly what had happened while he'd been off on his coffee run. But he could pretend it was just the potential for more bullets because more bullets for the kill-anything gun was a good thing.

They were able to fill up both bags before the ceiling caught fire and put an end to their hunt. While Dean got it all packed away (a little present for the devil to be delivered at some undisclosed time and place) Sam got to sit against the bumper of the car and pour stale, hot water over his burns while he swore under his breath.

"So, legendary monster that wasn't even supposed to exist," Dean closed the trunk, his smile a little strained as he looked at the angry red marks over his little brother's arm. "You wanna put it in the journal or should I?"

"Seeing as no one can read your hand writing, even you half the time?" Sam tossed the empty bottle back under the seats.

"Yeah well, not all of us went to fancy college to practice our penmanship." Dean grunted and got behind the wheel. "Come on, come on, get in."

Sam did, cradling his hurt arm to his chest. "Are we in a hurry?"

"No, but eventually someone's going to see the smoke and I don't want to be the only people in a ten mile radius of this mess. Last thing we need is to spend the night in jail over a little arson."


	24. Chapter 24

They made it to Santa Fe, stopping off in a drug store to load up on burn spray, bandages, and the like, before checking into the first roadside motel they passed that had their vacancy sign turned on.

Dean didn't go straight for the shower of the bottle of whiskey in his duffle bag like he usually did at the end of a hunt. Instead he corraled his brother into sitting down and set right to doctoring up his injured arm.

"I can do it myself." Sam complained.

"Yup." He nodded and kept up his careful work.

Sam wondered if there would ever be a time that his brother would stop playing the part of a worried Mom, and he silently hoped not.

It was a nearly tender moment of brotherly bonding over aloe and gauze, but the text notifications on Dean's phone started going off. Three times in a row and Dean seemed good enough to let whoever it was wait while he worked.

"You don't want to get that?"

Dean shook his head as he methodically wrapped up Sam's arm in much the same way that the two of them had bandaged Lucifer only a couple weeks before. "Give me a minute― just about― there you go. Good as new."

Aside from the fact that Sam couldn't bend his arm, he had to agree. "Thanks, man."

Waving it off, Dean tossed the used up can of burn spray into the trash and pulled out his cell phone, reading his texts distractedly while he spoke. "Yeah, well, you'll get me next time."

"Next time we have to kill a phoenix?" God, Sam hoped not.

"Always a next time, Sammy. It's part of the job… did you give Gabriel my phone number?"

That caught Sam's attention in a way he hadn't expected, looking up from his wrappings. "Gabriel the Angel?" He didn't know any other Gabriels. "No?"

"Ok, well… I have to go make a phone call apparently." Dean seemed more confused than concerned as he walked from the room, shaking ash from his hair as he went.

Sam decided not to worry, but he did think it really strange that his brother would step out when he didn't even bother closing the bathroom door behind him half the time. They didn't really have things that they didn't share.

The windows were thin and without really trying Sam could hear his brother faintly talking outside. He could have gone over and pressed up against the glass and listened to what was going on, but instead Sam chose to trust his brother.

He got up and went into the bathroom, getting as cleaned up as he could, using the sink and only one good arm. He dropped the remnants of his shirt into the trash and started scrubbing ash and soot from his face. Sam caught a bit of movement in the mirror where it was reflecting the bedroom. And even if he hadn't heard Dean come back in, he still called out to his brother with an amused, "So what did he want? You two going out for drinks later or something?"

"I think it was a strip club, actually."

Lucifer sounded nothing at all like Dean so the hopefull little illusion that is was Sam's brother out there shattered pretty damn quick. Confused and a little angry for good measure, the hunter looked over his shoulder at the uninvited and unexpected company.

The devil was looking curiously at the bandage wrappers scattered over the floor, like he was examining clues at a crime scene. "But from what I've been told there are usually some kinds of drinks there, so who really knows what they are doing."

Sam was tired and sore and really not in the mood for this. "What are you doing here?" Even if he knew that the answer had something to do with his absent brother who was in an awful lot of trouble.

"I'm― oh, Sam." Lucifer's eyes went a touch wide as he looked at the grumpy young man standing in the doorway to the bathroom. "What's happened to your arm?"

Annoyed, Sam answered with a sarcastic, "It was cold so we wrapped it up."

That quiet look of worry didn't leave, but a hint of a smile tugged at the corner of Lucifer's lips.

"And why are our brothers at a strip club together?" Not that Sam didn't fully believe that Dean would just up and leave him for a couple nice sets of breasts, it was just a strange time to suddenly up and go for it.

Lucifer didn't offer a straight answer, "I'd assume it's to look at the mostly naked women," because he only knew how to be difficult

Sam absolutely refused to smile back. "Ok, smart ass."

"Your brother told me not to tell you that he'd traded you for help on your hunt."

And Dean had mentioned off handedly that the devil had accepted a little 'extra' in exchange for his help with the phoenix, but Sam had sort of been assuming that that extra had been a kiss or… or pretty much anything other than himself. "He did _what_?"

Rather shamelessly, Lucifer went about making himself comfortable. He pulled out the chair from the little table below the window, only to sit on the table and tuck his feet onto the seat of the chair. "He warned me that you'd be ' _more pissed off than normal at the both of us_ ' if you found out, but I thought you'd be more willing to skip over the yelling at me part if you knew what was going on."

Just what the hell had Dean done to him this time?

"Do you _need_ to get yelled at?" Sam wanted to know while he went back to the sink,. He needed to finished cleaning up because he wasn't going to argue still smeared with soot, and water dripping down his neck.

" _Need to_?" The devil mused like he was actually considering whether or not he deserved a lecture this time. "No. But that's never stopped you, and I was hoping that we could maybe skip it this once seeing as there's no telling how long it'll take Gabriel and Dean to ogle their women." He rested his elbows on his knees and cocked his head at Sam, all the little movements visible from the mirror over the sink. "I traded him for time alone enough to talk to you and I'm not sure how long he thinks we need."

 _About a week?_

Sam took a towel from the wall and dried his face and neck.

"How annoyed with me will you be if I offer to kiss your back better?"

What kind of question was that?

Lowering his towel and frowning into the mirror, Sam asked, "What's wrong with my back?" He didn't think that he'd hurt it, but it was possible that the pain in his arm was sort of overriding all else.

"Other than the fact that possibly no one's ever kissed it?" Lucifer was watching every little shift in the hunter from his far corner of the room. "Nothing's wrong at all. But I happen to think it's a real tragedy, don't you?"

Feeling more than a little self conscious about his state of half undress, Sam made a b-line for where he'd dropped his duffle bag and found a clean shirt, awkwardly pulling it on despite the protests in his injured arm. "Don't even start with me."

"Start?"

"Start anything you aren't willing to finish. I'm exhausted and hurt and really not in the mood for whatever this is."

The noise that Lucifer made was one of frustration as he held one hand out, reaching loosely for Sam's arm that was on the wrong side of the room. "...can I?"

"Always looking for a trade, aren't you?" He couldn't help but think of Dean's theories from that morning. But whatever the motivations the devil may have, even Sam wasn't stubborn enough to turn down help when the alternative was the promise of this steady burning ache for the next week or so. He came over and had to struggle with the smile he felt at the surprised and overly happy look that the other man got by the diminishing space between them.

"Don't tell anyone else," Lucifer murmured as he took Sam's bandaged arm between his hands with something close to reverence, "but I'm not even asking for anything in exchange. I'll lose all kinds of face for it… but you're smiling at me for the first time in forever and I can't think of anything else I'd want right now."

Why did Lucifer have to make it so hard for Sam to cling to his well earned anger?

Cold was starting down around his wrist where the devil held to him like an anchor. It was like standing under an AC unit on full blast. Not bad and not painful, but real, real cold the longer it kept up.

"You might not know it, but I heard you all the times you prayed to me." Lucifer said with short, careful words. " I was… running and doing my best to stay alive―and I'm not proud to admit that to you, but you have no expectations left of me at this point that I can ruin. I couldn't come to you, just to ease your mind, without bringing all sorts of trouble along with me."

It was an apology without the words and Sam hadn't expected that much effort from this man. An apology for doing what he could to keep Sam safe. It was as sweet as it was awful, eroding away his anger at being ignored for so long.

He fumbled a touch over his very honest words, "Oh, well… um, thank you."

Lucifer's shoulders went tight and he looked up at the hunter with eyes rounded in surprise. "You're welcome." A crooked smile started to overtake him as he lowered his head back down to his work.

"I'm glad that you finally showed up when you did, don't get we wrong, but I wasn't praying to you when your brother found us." Sam was certain that he hadn't had a single complicated thought while he'd been hanging on that wall. He'd been panicked and nowhere clear enough to call for help.

"You didn't have to." Lucifer moved his careful hands up towards Sam's elbow. "Since I put your soul back and got things a little mixed up I've been getting snatches of feelings from you."

"...Oh?" Sam didn't know what that meant.

"Most of the time you're just annoyed―and as a man who lives his life to be a pebble in someone's shoe, that was something I could live with. You mad at me meant that you were still fine and safe… but that day you were afraid." His touch slid over Sam's bicep, the cold spreading so slow and soothing.

Sam had been far too mad when he saw the devil again after so much absence to really appreciate the help for what it really was. Maybe Lucifer hadn't been there when Sam wanted him to be, but he'd come running the second he was needed.

Which was sort of like perfection.

Asking for anything more than what Sam had been offered would have felt like ingratitude.

"Full disclosure," Lucifer peered up from under his lashes almost coy. "I could have fixed your arm up much faster… and without touching you. But where's the fun in that?"

Sam considered pulling away. Though he couldn't see the damage to his arm under all the bandages it only hurt up around his shoulder and he thought that he'd be able to live with just a little pain left if it meant spiteing the man holding him so carefully.

"And there's that delicious annoyed feeling again. I was starting to miss it." Lucifer grinned as he leaned into Sam, wrapping his long fingers around the tight curve of his shoulder muscles.

"You could have just asked." Sam sighed and didn't have a way to dampen his quiet agitation. "If you wanted an excuse to touch me you could have just asked."

"You would have said no." Lucifer let his hands fall away, his work done, and he rested his arms loosely over his crooked knees. "Me wanting to touch you, just to touch you, isn't a good enough reason."

That was some logic there that Sam couldn't really argue with.

So he quietly shook his head and started picking apart the careful wrappings that Dean had spent so much time putting in place, revealing smooth and unburned skin. He couldn't have healed that well on his own if he'd tried.

It had been such a small thing, for once an injury that was little more than an inconvenience. Nothing broken, no new scars. It would have been fine on its own given enough time. It reminded Sam of the beginnings of a migraine that the devil had chased away for him not too long ago. The help hadn't been asked for, and it hadn't been necessary. Sam would have lived. But Lucifer had fixed it just to fix it.

"Good reasons are overrated." Sam started wrapping the bandages around themselves, balling them up into a tangle. It gave his hands something to do while his mouth confessed something rather simple that had taken him too damn long to figure out about the man sitting in front of him. "Sometimes you just need some physical contact. It's part of being human."

"I'm not human, Sam." The devil reminded rather needlessly, as if anything from the way he was perched on the edge of the table to the way he was watching the hunter could ever be mistaken for anything other than completely alien.

Subtlety wasn't ever one of Sam's strong suits. "That was an open invitation, Luci. Do you need me to spell it out for you?"

Things would have been much more convenient if those 'snatches of feelings' went both ways, because Lucifer's expression went all kinds of funny and Sam had zero idea on how to process it. At least he didn't have too much time to overthink as Lucifer was stepping up onto his chair and down over the back of it in a movement that almost seemed smooth.

Something much closer to the slither of snakes than the flutter of butterflies exploded to life in Sam's stomach as the devil's hands came up to catch either side of his face. That old familiar tingle of skin on skin contact prickled between them and he was caught rather breathless. Lucifer kept stepping forward and Sam had no alternative other than to walk backward until he found a wall. The devil's wrists cradled his neck and his chest was firmly weighted under the press of very strong forearms.

Sam stammered something unintelligible when that negligible space left between them vanished. He closed his eyes as Lucifer's nose brushed against his, heart in his throat. A confusingly victorious feeling rioted through him only to be left to die a thousand quiet deaths when the shorter man turned his face away and pressed their cheeks together. Warm, even breaths ghosting over Sam's ear.

It wasn't a kiss.

It wasn't even in the same family or genus as a kiss.

But it was warm and safe and oddly comforting, so very nearly a hug... and all Sam could do was curse that deep well of longing inside of him that hadn't faltered once since he was seventeen.

This was an offering and a situation that couldn't be read wrong anymore than it could be read right.

Stupid and confusing, and this is just who they were.

Where the hell were Sam's hands supposed to go?

He cautiously rested them along Lucifer's sides and when he realised how incredibly insufficient it felt he caved and pulled his arms around the devil.

After about half of an eternity the man pressed against Sam drew a slow, rattling breath and spoke. "Weeks ago my brother sent me a story he'd found on the internet, not a real one… I think that's how most internet stories go." His lips brushed along Sam's jaw in a very accidental kind of way between words. "About someone very young and very lonely, who sold their soul to the devil for a friend. Just for a friend. And the devil didn't know what to do with that, didn't really have any spare 'friends' laying around to give this kid, so he said 'you can have me. I'll be your friend, it'll only cost you your soul', which was fine with this kid and they shook on it."

Sam had no idea where this was going. He kept his eyes closed and listened like he was being handed the secrets of the universe here.

"Years passed and the devil kept up his end of the bargain, being the best friend that he could― and eventually his human grew old and it was time for them to die, time for the devil to collect on the other end of their deal. But he couldn't. He realised that he couldn't. He couldn't lose his friend. So he changed their deal, he offered for his friend to not die, but to reign in Hell beside him, so that they could stay together." Lucifer's fingers were digging in, not enough to bruise, but significantly more weight to the touch than needed. "And Gabriel was laughing about it. Saying 'I didn't know that even random strangers on the internet knew about how bad you fucked this one up'."

Sam hadn't been prepared for anything so pointless to be told to him with the same sort of intensity usually reserved for the safe space offered by a confessional. He didn't know what to say in response, so he said nothing.

"You never asked me why I didn't take you when you died, Sam." Lucifer chided with absolutely no force behind it. "And you should. I know you might not believe it, but I'm very good at winning these sorts of conversations― so far not against you, but I practiced this one, and I know I'll get it right for once."

"You… you can't _win_ a conversation."

"Yes. I can."

And despite all evidence to the contrary, Sam wasn't a complete idiot. He could see the trap laid out for him as easily as if it were in writing, but still he found himself playing along and asking, "Why didn't you take me like we agreed on?"

Lucifer swallowed rather audibly, almost like nerves. "Because I considered a world without you in it―and that wasn't a world that I wanted to exist in."

And that…

That was the sort of thing that even if you thought it, even if you felt it with all your heart, you don't say out loud. Giving life to those kinds of words was holding your arms wide, closing your eyes, and telling the other person to do their worst.

And for once Sam thought that he might actually understand Lucifer.

Only this wasn't what he was expecting to hear today, or really ever.

The ability to build cohesive thoughts had fled and he was left looking at the opposite wall, overly aware of the exact way that Lucifer felt in his arms. The weight of the other man. The way he smelled. The warmth of him.

"Sam, you're not saying anything and I'm starting to worry I messed this up too."

"I― what do those snatches of feelings say right now, Luci?" Because Sam would love to know just how to translate this dizzy falling feeling.

"You're… confused." The devil said after some thought, the stubble of his cheek prickly against Sam's. "And a little happy."

It wasn't a lie.

"Well then," a strained little laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep and repressed and terrified inside of Sam. "There we go."

"Does that mean I won?"

"Damn it. You can't win a―" What was the point in arguing now? "Fine. Yeah. _You won_. Congrats, man."

Lucifer leaned back, still holding Sam's face in his hands, making enough space between them to grin. "What's my prize?"

And that's how the chokingly tender moment filled with all kinds of promise was smothered beneath the relentless wave of idiocy that had kept them afloat for so long.

It was as much of a relief as a curse.

But Sam was smiling, quietly enjoying the way that he could hold his own elbows while keeping Lucifer so comfortably in the circle of his arms like this was just something that the two of them did all the time. "What'd you want?"

With enough hesitation to make the hunter dread what was about to be asked of him, the devil thought over what his prize should be for getting this far without everything devolving into a petty name calling sort of argument for once.

"If you hadn't been so mad when you forbid me from ever even asking for a kiss, I think that's what I'd want." Lucifer looked strangely wistful before quickly adding on with a serious tone, "and that's a comment on a fact, not a question, so you're not allowed to start getting all bent out of shape and ruin this quite yet. I didn't break any of your weird rules. Can my prize just be you not getting mad right here?"

Sam started to let his arms slip, startled and more than a little confused.

He hadn't _forbidden_ …

Yes he had.

Yes he really actually had.

Lucifer had asked once if he could kiss Sam, not in trade for anything but just to kiss him, and the hunter had been quick to say 'no' because being asked like that wasn't how he'd always imagined it happening in all those wet dreams over the years. Naturally he hadn't clarified, but he'd known what he meant and stuck to it. Which had been more than enough to muddy the waters.

His mind masochistically supplied a memory of another time when he'd actually told this man no, that he wasn't allowed to kiss back or even ask to kiss him in the first place.

And Sam felt like he was watching a movie and finally figured out the dramatic plot twist before the main character could and was left to sit there yelling at the screen as stupid misunderstandings continued to unfold.

Only Sam was the audience _and_ the main character and he sort of hated himself and the spectacular way that he'd managed to block his own shot.

"You're getting mad again."Lucifer slowly threaded his fingers up into Sam's hair, watching him with a new found caution. "But I want it on record that I won. That I managed to get you to actually smile at me again."

"I'm an idiot."

"Well, yes." He chuckled warily. "But I like you anyways."

"No. I mean― ok, jerk, you didn't need to be so quick to agree."

The devil shrugged in a boneless sort of way, head falling to one side as he continued to slowly tangle his fingers up. "I call it like I see it."

Sam let his head hit the wall behind him, irritated but mostly just at himself for once. "Lucifer. Shut up."

The man didn't stop petting, but he did stop teasing long enough for the hunter to collect his scattered thoughts.

"You… you've had permission to do anything you want to me from the first time you got in the front seat of the the Impala." Sam forced himself to look away from the ceiling and actually face the object of his years worth of pent up frustration. "As long as your not grabbing my ass while I'm tryin' to kill a vampire, or at some equally inappropriate time―use your good judgement on that one―I _always_ want you to touch me."

"Can I say two things?"

Oh, this was going to go sideways, Sam could already feel it. "...yes?"

"One: You're lying to yourself if you think I have anything close to 'good judgement' at any point in time. And Two: this is obviously some kind of confusing human trick so you've got an excuse to get mad at me about things I don't understand and then refuse to explain it to me."

" _What_? What the hell is a 'human trick'?"

"You." Lucifer made a sound halfway between a chuckle and a sob, somehow managing to be ever more frustrated than Sam. "You're exhibits A through Z of everything that humans do that I don't understand. You're this gorgeous minefield that I keep coming back to even though I know that you're specifically made to keep me away. I don't understand you and at this point I'm willing to bet that you don't even get what you're doing most of the time either."

That was an unexpectedly fair assessment.

Sam slid a hand up to cradle the back of Lucifer's head and he felt the man tense in his arms.

"Ok, well," he tried to approach this in a way that he hoped wasn't going to end with him sitting alone in this motel room with his regrets. He fit his mouth over Lucifer's like a question. Careful and hesitant and so very expectedly unanswered. "That… that was permission to kiss me."

Lucifer blinked slowly up at him, tip of his tongue wetting his lower lip.

Sam kissed him again, stomach twisting in knots as the other man tilted his head just so, not reciprocating, but leaning in. "And that was me asking you to _please_ kiss me back for once and stop being so damn difficult."

A breathless sort of smile had crept over Lucifer. Not at all helpful but wholly beautiful and inviting.

"And this is me begging with no dignity at all," Sam whispered into a third very short kiss that was more of a laugh than anything else. "Because you make me crazy and I don't know what I'm doing or how to get you to stop standing there smiling at me and to just fucking _move_."

"Wow, ok. You don't have to make such a big deal about it." Lucifer's smile went crooked, a little grin forming. "If you wanted a kiss all you had to do was ask."

"I swear to god, Lucifer," Sam let his threat go unfinished, words cut short because the devil had pulled him down and covered his mouth with his own, bruising him with a kiss that had been held back for far too long.

For the memory of the lost and angry seventeen year old bottled up inside of Sam it was this magical, weak kneed, life changing sort of moment that he'd been waiting for for forever.

For the frustrated adult that was the rest of Sam it was just this resounding 'about damn time'.


	25. Chapter 25

notes::

This has always been one of those stories that I had no idea where it was going. It started with just the idea of the first chapter and then I set it in the corner for a year or so before coming back to it because I honestly had no clue where to go from the point of Lucifer getting into the car with the boys.  
And here we are.  
Years and chapters later and you guys are simply amazing.  
You will probably never really understand how much your support is appreciated, especially when I branch out and do weird case fics (which I know are not everyone's favorite place to go).

I love you guys in that weird way that only a stranger in a shared weird ship on the internet can.

Be good to yourselves, and I'll see you soon.

* * *

Sam liked Lucifer.

He liked Lucifer more when the man's mouth was too occupied to make annoying comments.

And how handy it was now that every time the devil started saying something that Sam didn't like he could just kiss him into breathy silence. For years he'd had to suffer, never realising that the perfect solution had been literally staring him in the face.

It had been nearly two hours of just laying tangled on the bed, switching between slow open mouthed kisses, to arguing over nothing at all, and then back to kissing. That's how Dean found them. Opening the motel room door to see his baby brother laying half on top of the devil, hand in his hair, panting softly while the other man bit a slow line over the curve of his jaw.

" _Fuckin'_ _finally_ ," the older Winchester grunted and kicked the door closed behind him. "Didn't think you two would ever get around to it."

Sam felt heat rush to his cheeks and he pulled away from a mildly annoyed looking Lucifer who hadn't really bothered to open his eyes so much as just fall back onto one of the bed's pillows with a displeased sigh.

"I now owe Gabriel a million dollars because you two," Dean wiggled his fingers distastefully at the man pile on the bed, " _finally_ ―and you know what? I ain't even mad about it."

Sam was trying desperately to collect himself. "You don't have a million dollars." Sitting up and running hands through his hair, drawing one knee up to try and hide how much his body wasn't ok with this unscheduled interruption.

Rolling his eyes, Dean gave them both a very long look. "Yeah, well, you two have been _not_ fuckin' since before your last growth spurt, Sammy. It felt like a safe bet that tonight wouldn't be the night you decided to grow a pair and actually do _anything_ about your dude crush."

It still wasn't The Night.

Hands hadn't even ventured as far south as hips.

The devil stubbornly remained too strange for anything notably deviant to have happened.

For starters, they'd spent the last twenty minute stretch with Lucifer holding Sam's calloused hands in his, intermittently kissing fingers and palms while complaining that the young hunter needed to at least _try_ to be a little less reckless and a lot more careful. It had been an unexpected lecture while the devil had deliberately kissed each and every old nick and scar over Sam's hands, and up his wrists, slowly up to his throat.

Not that Sam was about to complain. The giddy feeling in his chest and all his muddled thoughts vouched for the whole lot of fantastic tonight had been. But he wasn't about to let his brother think that barging in on them was any kind of ok.

"Alright, Satan." Dean was grinning while not making direct contact with the bed. "We had a deal, now get the fuck out."

Lucifer sat up in a very unnatural, Frankenstein's monster coming to life, sort of way. His eyes were unfocused and his smile was small but hungry. "I traded you some help for talking to your Sam… we weren't done talking just yet."

"I said I'd give you long enough to 'talk it out', not my problem you didn't use the time I gave ya' for what you were supposed'ta." Dean was shrugging out of his over shirt while toeing off his boots, a surprising amount of coordination which meant that he hadn't had all that much to drink while he'd been out doing whatever the hell he'd been doing with Gabriel. "Besides, don't you have some party plans to get back to?"

"Party?" Lucifer cocked his head to one side and the easy amusement fell away like stage curtains being drawn, leaving him dark and quiet.

"Your brother talks an awful lot." Dean dug the colt out of his pile of stuff and tossed the empty gun onto the bed along with the ziplock bags of ashes. "But I tell ya, he's got some damn good taste in women, and in ice cream."

Which was one of the weirder things that Sam had heard his brother say recently, but he figured it sort of summed up Dean's night without any of the messy details.

"Now get out of my bed, you sons of bitches." Dean demanded with no less amusement to his tone. "I'm tired and you're gross."

Sam looked around the room for the first time in a long while and realised that this was in fact the bed closest to the door (which was the one that Dean always claimed for his own). It hadn't been where he'd intended to pull Lucifer, but he also hadn't been paying all that much attention to where they'd been going.

"Dean," Sam began the grumbling complaint, because he'd lost track of the number of times that he'd had to wait out in the car or at a bar while Dean spent some time in pleasant company. His big brother owed him this once―but Dean knew exactly where this was going and didn't even let it get started.

"Listen, I killed a mother fucking phoenix today. And yes, I did get a celebratory lap dance from possibly the prettiest damn girl in France because apparently Gabriel knows a guy owns a titty bar out there; but the feathery bastard is exhausting to be around and I deserve a few hours of sleep. You two wanna keep fooling around find somewhere else to do it."

Annoyed but with absolutely zero shame, Sam was about to ask if Lucifer could magic them away from here, but he turned to see that the devil was already up off the bed.

" _Party plans_ , as your brother so inadequately put it," was the only explanation offered. "Besides, until Michael is over looking for me it's best if I don't draw his attention in your direction." And then he was gone.

No goodbye.

No goodbye kiss.

No soft variation on 'I love you'.

Not that Sam had specifically been expecting any of those things, but he'd sort of convinced himself that they were just going to happen. Which went against every single interaction that he'd had with Lucifer up until this point.

Everything that they did was always destined to be a bit disappointing and really frustrating.

"Party?" Sam tried to focus on anything that wasn't that unsatisfied ache low in his gut. Besides, the idea of Lucifer throwing a party was sort of ridiculous and bared a some scrutiny.

"Yeah." Dean fell back onto his mattress and pushed aside the pillow that the other two men had been sharing. "Apparently he's got some plan to fix things. That's why he wanted the gun back." Dean smacked a hand against Sam's shoulder until his little brother got up and switched to the the room's other bed. "Gabriel thinks it's stupid, which is about all I got out of him, but I kind of got the feeling that he'd follow Lucifer's lead anyways. So stupid or not, it's something to look forward to."

Sam wasn't exactly mad that he'd just spent two hours with the devil and not once had the man bothered mentioning that he had a bad plan to fix all the things that he'd screwed up by getting caught bringing Sam back to life. Apparently, to Lucifer, there'd been more important things to be distracted by tonight. He left Dean to sleep, wanting a shower. Seeing as he'd only just sort of washed his face clean of ash before falling against Lucifer, he still smelled like a bonfire, and that needed to be fixed before he could fall asleep.

The mirror over the sink embarrassed Sam by showing him the goofy smile that he couldn't seem to shake, and the multitude of faint teeth marks along his throat like fading crescent moons.

There wouldn't be any complaints from him about tonight, even if he still held fast to a small handful of regrets. It seemed healthy to keep a few reservations about anything that had to do with the devil.

For nearly three months Sam played it cool. An easy enough task considering that nearly a week straight was spent husting pool to replenish their ever dwindling cash supply, and then it was a rather by the book poltergeist in Cheyenne, a very not by the book zombie in San Diego, a pack of werewolves in Richmond, and some aggressively freaky cat things that seemed in every way like normal cats until they turned inside out and doubled in size and started eating people.

Nothing quite like hunting to distract a man.

Between hunts Sam had been looking for signs of demons, for signs of angels, for any indication that Lucifer's family spat had tipped in anyone's favor. But there was only a whole lot of nothing to be found that ticked off the right boxes.

No news was supposed to be good news, right?

And Sam had been trying awful hard to convince himself of that.

Some days there were other priorities and it was easier to push away the worry. Days like the ones where the brothers left the meaty remains of about twenty faux-cats strewn over the walls of a once nice townhouse. That was the sort of thing that tended to leave some mental images that were hard to shake.

They were going from Fort Worth up towards Provo to check on three housewives who lived on the same block that had all won the lottery in the past month. Personally, Sam was thinking witches. Dean had his money on crossroad deals.

When they first hit the road there'd been some oppressive heat and glaring sunlight when Dean had tossed the keys to Sam and told him to take a turn driving. And before the snores from the passenger seat had a chance to deepen, hail started pelting the windshield like a snare drum. Rocky Mountain summers were a strange thing. Dad had always said that if you didn't like the weather then just wait five minutes.

Driving in silence, squinting out through the bouncing mist coming up off the road as ice pounded down and burst into slush, Sam let the Impala creep down to the minimum limit. No one else was out here on the long strip of tarmac between summer yellowed hills.

"Hey," Sam whispered, very conscious of his brother lightly sleeping beside him. "Lucifer… I know you're busy avoiding your family, and for you a few months is probably no time at all, but it'd be nice just to know that you're ok."

Naturally, there was no kind of answer.

"I'm not saying 'hey get your ass over here' or anything." Sam thought that a moving car might make for an awkward arrival on the archangel's part. "But if you could just give me an a-ok so I can stop worrying, that would be great."

Lightning broke like an omen, a long white crack tearing the sky. The thunder that echoed was nearly deafening, loud enough to feel over the hum of the engine. Dean stirred beside Sam, grumbling and looking around before folding his arms over his chest and going back to sleep.

Sam huffed in annoyance, "so was that a yes or a no?" Or was it a coincidence? Probably a coincidence.

"It's just lightning," Lucifer said from the back seat as Sam had a minor heart attack and almost drove the Impala into a ditch.

"Don't," Sam risked a glance over his shoulder to double check that the rearview mirror wasn't lying to him. "Don't just pop up like that. I swear to god."

The screech of tires and uneven gravel under then as Sam got the car back into the lane woke Dean, who was swearing quietly until he noticed the unexpected company, and then he was just swearing at a normal volume.

"I think 'hello' is more traditional." The devil comfortably leaned forward, folding his arms over the backrest of the brother's seat. "And it's real cute that you think I can control the weather, Sam. I like that about you. The surprising naivety is always refreshing."

It was probably bad that Sam was considering slamming the breaks just because Lucifer wasn't wearing a seat belt, and tossing him around in the back of the car seemed like it would be satisfying.

"Why is he here again?" Dean demanded while casting dubious looks at the devil.

"I wanted to know if he was ok, so I sort of… prayed to him." Sam had never quite called it that outloud and he really didn't like how it sounded now that he was thinking about it.

"Great." Dean muttered under his breath, obviously still annoyed at being suddenly dragged out of his nap. "Sammy prays to Satan. I'll be sure to put that in the family newsletter this Christmas."

Sam was just about to defend himself, but Lucifer had leaned over and lightly kissed his shoulder before resting his chin against it. And witty comebacks were forgotten as it was all Sam could do to fight back a stupid grin.

"I just spent thirty years in Hell." Lucifer sighed softly. "Didn't hear a word from you. It's nice to know you missed me."

Twice Sam opened his mouth to say something, but he felt a little too lost. It didn't seem unreasonable to think that Lucifer could have been down in Hell all this time. Did time move differently down there, or was the man just exaggerating for the attention? Both were equally believable here.

"Man, I wish you'd been gone thirty years." Dean said wistfully, adjusting his seat belt and sinking a little lower as he made himself comfortable again, creeping back towards his nap. "That would have been a-freakin'-mazing."

Warm breath tickled Sam's neck as Lucifer sighed again. "I didn't plan to be gone quite so long when I let Michael think he was locking me back up. But best laid plans and all that."

"Did you sneak out again?" Sam was almost sure that he was following, but he found the proximity to the other man to be more than a little distracting.

" _Mhm_ ," his mouth brushed the hunter's throat. "And with any luck, it will be another thousand years or so before he realises that I've slipped out."

"That was your _big plan_?" For whatever reason Sam had been giving the devil a bit more credit over this thing. He'd just assumed that whatever this 'stupid plan' was was at least marginally more creative than the devil letting himself get caught, locked up, and then breaking himself out again (likely with Gabriel's help).

"It worked the first time." Was Lucifer's defense. "It's not like Michael is going to suffer himself to come down and check on me. And even if he did, I left most of my grace behind like like time. No one's going to notice I'm even gone."

With that Sam had a few more doubts to add to his ever growing collection.

"Dean," Lucifer took his chin from Sam's shoulder to lean towards the very suddenly suspicious looking older Winchester. "Why don't you drive for a bit."

"Why?"

Lucifer's smile was so innocent and so hungry at the same time. "So Sam can come sit back here with me."

"You're not fucking my brother in my car."

Sam choked a little, feeling his eyes going wide. " _Dean!_ "

"Or the other way around." Dean made a face, nose wrinkling. "Dude, I don't need, or want, to know who's banging who. Just not in my goddamned car, and not while I'm driving it."

Shocked and pleased laughter bubbled from the back seat and heat was smothering Sam's cheeks in the same sort of way that he wished he could smother Lucifer with a pillow right about now.

"You guys'll just have to keep it in your pants until we get to Provo." Stubbornly, Dean folded his arms back over his chest, splitting his disapproving frown between the two of them with some skill.

"Oh?" Lucifer leaned forward again, one hand finding the back of Sam's head, lightly playing with his hair, as he curiously looked at Dean. "Are we hunting something interesting in Provo, or just stopping to enjoy the scenery? The mountains there are beautiful this time of year."

"Sammy thinks it's witches," Dean didn't look like he had the first idea what to do with all that unwanted attention he was suddenly getting. "I'm still thinking some ass has been making deals at a crossroad."

With a soft huff of a laugh, Lucifer leaned back into Sam, touching and being overly close because apparently he finally understood the extent of all the permission he'd been given. "Big difference between those two. There shouldn't even be a question. I have so much to teach you boys."

Dean seemed to take that as a mild insult.

Sam took it as more of a threat, with the way that Lucifer's mouth had found the back of his neck.

"You, um," Sam squinted at the road that was already lightening as the clouds cleared way for more of that summer sunshine. "You don't have to come with. I can call you when we're done and―"

"Yeah, no thank you."

The words made Sam squirm in his seat, inching away from the soft tickle along his spine where Lucifer was still breathing on him.

"Ah, man." Dean grumped from his slightly defensive posture against the passenger side door. "How long you staying this time?"

Lucifer seemed to think this over before his chin came down to rest against Sam's shoulder one last time. "As long as you want me here with you," he offered with the softest whisper like it was a secret just for the two of them.

"Forever." Sam demanded before he could let himself over think it.

"I can do forever." Lucifer chuckled so softly.

Sam fought back another one of those stupid grins.

And Dean made quiet retching sounds of support from his side of the car.

"Oh, shut up, jerk."

"Bitch."

" _Humans_ ," Lucifer chimed in.

Sam laughed at the unexpected addition and glanced over his shoulder to meet Lucifer's grin with one of his own.

"Come on," Dean almost yelled, getting their attention off of eachother. "Try watching the damn road. You can tell him you love him later when it's not putting my life at risk."

Sam would.

Because he did.

And if anyone were to ask him he wouldn't be able to think of a moment, before that simple realisation, that he'd ever been quite so happy.


End file.
